The Truth Revealed (Alpha Sapphire)
by PatrioticSwellow
Summary: If only life was predictable for the young man who was carried into the pokemon world a long time ago. Now, he has to work with deities as well as his friends to stop Arvil, the man hungry for power over the entire Hoenn region. But going on a mission to stop him is going to take a lot of preparation. And, if the mission fails, Arvil may extend his reach beyond Hoenn.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I knocked on the door, but no one answered. It was late in the evening, so it didn't make sense that my family was already asleep. Thirty seconds later, I gave up on the door and walked around the house. I kicked open the side gate and checked my backyard. There was nobody there. I was halfway to the back door to see if it was locked when I heard a short, electronic whirring from behind me. I froze for a second. Silence. I turned on the balls of my feet.

Whirriii… whirrii…

The trash can shook, like a firecracker was about to burst out of it. I instinctively placed my hand on my pokeball. This was more than a little weird.

I gulped, then advanced towards the quivering can. I lifted the lid. A bolt of lightning shot out and started flying about my backyard.

"Bucky!" I shouted. The rotom stopped in front of my face and laughed, which sounded like me when I had a cold and I coughed and sneezed at the same time.

"Where's Cray?" I asked. Bucky flew up to the back porch and floated through the door. I had lost my key to the house a few months ago in an unfortunate encounter with an oddish, which had to be the most embarrassing moment of my career.

"Could you maybe open the door?" I asked. The lock clicked in response. I went inside and into the kitchen. All the windows were closed and the shades were drawn, so it was darker in than outside. My stomach growled, and I realized that all I'd eaten today was brunch right before the battle and food. I felt faint. I hope there was leftovers from whatever they had today.

"Bucky?" I called out. I put my finger underneath the light switch, then stopped. I deserved a little fun.

I wandered into the living room where I could see the rotom's faint glow from behind the couch. I walked over and leaned over the edge. "BOO!"

Bucky launched off the floor in alarm, spinning in the air and making a noise more suited for a unfezant than a rotom. I laughed, sinking to my knees on the floor.

Suddenly there was clattering, shushing and footsteps behind me. I stood up and spun on my heels. It was my turn to be shocked out of my pants.

"What in the-"

The lights came on and the cheering started.

* * *

I really wanted to get that raspberry cake in me a little bit faster, but no one would let me since they wanted to hear all about my victory. I set my half-eaten plate on the table and started talking.

"It was all thanks to Eclipse, really. Steven's metagross couldn't land a decent hit on him, and this umbreon kept on using his dark pulses. And the rest of my team was unable to fight, so it was just him."

"Why don't you let your pokemon out?" Cray asked once my recap of the battle ended. Bucky danced happily on his head while he said it, so I couldn't decline.

The kitchen was crammed to the breaking point with aunts, uncles and cousins, so I led them out back to show them my pokemon. They appeared in bright flashes of white light. I knew what everyone's response to Eclipse would be before he even came out. And I was right. Everyone gasped. An extremely rare pokemon had just appeared.

"That's a shiny pokemon, Mom!" my little brother said.

I smiled proudly and put my hand through Eclipse's hair. "It's all thanks to him that I won."

I knew Eclipse as a pokemon with a very serious and shy attitude, but he sometimes broke character when he got praised. This was one of those times as the crowd went something to the effect of: "Aww! He's so cute!" I could see a blush through his fur and decided to let the other pokemon out before he collapsed from all the attention.

Out came Jaqueline the lucario, Lenny the flygon, Glade the absol, Harpy the staraptor, and Patriot the swellow. I had already rested them at a pokemon center, so they were ready to party.

"HARPY! COME BACK THIS INSTANT!" I shouted. But she was already inside the cake.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dad walk through the back door. He wasn't known for a volcanic temper, but I did know that he probably paid good money for the cake. I ran to get in front of my disgusting staraptor, but it was too late.

"What in the sam hill is going on?"

I smiled at him with a plate of cake in my right hand. "Care for some cake?"

Everyone was trying not to laugh-including my dad. "Sure, son." He took it from me. Then a blob the shape of a bird landed on my head and screamed. Diagnosis? Too much sugar.

After about thirty minutes into the party, some cousins around my age challenged me to a battle. Everyone gathered around the basketball court.

"Okay," I said, "this court isn't earthquake resistant, so no ground types, got it?" Canyon nodded. Clover was also challenging me, and I knew that her pokemon wasn't anything to laugh at. Then another person stepped up. My dad.

"A triple battle?" I said exasperatedly.

"That's right!" Clover said. "And we each get to use all six of our pokemon!"

I shook my head. And how was this fair?

"Oh well. HARPY!"

She poked her head out from behind the chimney on top of my house. Her whole body was covered in cake and gravy. I groaned.

"Get over here."

So she flew to her position on my side of the battlefield.

"Lenny! Glade! Get over here!" They jumped over the people and took their positions. I groaned again when I saw that they were also bloated from the food.

"What are you complaining about?" Canyon asked. "Bucky can't even levitate anymore. He ate too much laundry."

I shook my head. "Fine. Let's begin."

The small crowd of family cheered. Most of them rooted for Canyon and Clover since they were the underdogs.

"Go scrafty!" Canyon shouted.

"I'm not the kind of person to announce what I'm about to use," Clover muttered. She threw out an ultra ball, which turned out to be a noctowl.

And Norman sent out his ace pokemon-a slaking. That's when the fun began. Noctowl set up a light screen, which was unfortunate for me since I told Lenny to use the boomburst. Harpy protected herself, and Glade went for the sucker punch on Norman's slaking. Norman was immediately put out of action. The boomburst didn't do as much as I hoped, though it looked like the scrafty took the hit badly.

The crowd gasped as Harpy pushed the "NUKE" button in her brain. Also known as the horrifying brave bird. It was pretty funny to see the bullet of gravy and frosting to completely knock the noctowl out.

A few minutes later, Lenny fainted due to a pidgeot's hyper beam. And glade couldn't take the heat wave from Canyon's charizard. Each of my opponents had only one pokemon left, though. I knew how to end it quickly.

"Harpy, use return! Patriot, use aerial ace! And Jaqueline, use aura sphere!"

They responded and each took one down.

The party was great, but it had to end sometime. At nine, with everyone's pokemon healed up, they started to leave. I was about to walk back inside the house and get up to my room when Norman announced for everyone to stay put.

Oh, that's right. The prize money for winning.

Dad handed me a fancy envelope. "Open it."

So I did, and stared. I didn't actually know what the prize money was until now, and boy, was it a lot.

"Three-hundred-million dollars…"

This could buy me an apartment, and I hadn't even settled down yet.

My little brother ran up to me. "Brendan! I still can't believe you won! Maybe we won't have to be poor anymore!"

I shook my head at stephen's comment. We weren't even remotely poor. We had a six bedroom house, and another upstairs family room.

"I know, right?" I responded.

* * *

It was getting late, and soon it was time for bed. I walked into my old dusty room. It looked exactly like it did when I left home three years earlier, back when I was twelve. For me, that was ages ago. Sure, I did day visits sometimes, maybe once every two weeks, but for the most part, I was on an adventure somewhere. I beat his bed sheets against the wall to rid most of the dust, then laid down.

 _Wow, and I'm not even close to being as tall as the average sixteen-year old. I need a bigger bed._

I was about to fall asleep, but then I remembered that my umbreon made me promise to let him outside for the night. I always slept with my belt on, so he just reached down and took the timer ball from one of the three pouches hanging from it.

Then I pushed the button in the center of the ball. My umbreon appeared in a soundless flash of light. He looked up, then shot a quick nod as if to say,

"Hey dude."

"Hey Eclipse. How are you tonight?"

The umbreon nodded, then jumped off the bed to find something interesting.

"Tone it down a bit," I said sleepily, referring to the bright blue lights that Eclipse was generating.

I felt guilty for letting only my umbreon out, so he just decided to let them all explore for the night. I took the remaining five poke balls and released all of them. They were happy they were out and began to chat loudly to each other. I sat down heavily on the carpet and just let my pokemon mess around.

I pulled out my Pokenav Plus and began browsing the Internet. I was looking at lopunny memes when I noticed the time at the top right corner of the screen. 12:30. I looked up. Eclipse was calmly inspecting the snorlax. Everyone else were just chatting like no one else was sleeping in town.

"Shh!"

The pokemon fell quiet.

"We need to sleep."

Reluctantly, the birds quieted. The absol shot from the ground like it was just stung by a beedrill. I shook my head. I realized that if I was going to let my pokemon sleep out of their poke balls, I would have to clear more space. My eyes fell on my life sized snorlax doll.

 _Why do I even have that?_

I had used this trick before to get my way when I pranked someone, and I would just use it again to make more room.

"Eclipse, use minimize on the snorlax."

The umbreon looked back, confused.

"We need more space to sleep tonight."

That seemed to make sense to him. I knew my pokemon could understand human speech perfectly-not just battle commands. I even swore that once I saw Patriot laugh at a joke that my friend texted me over the Pokenav. I moved from my thoughts and found that the Snorlax doll was already only half of a foot tall.

"Good umbreon."

Eclipse nodded serenely.

"So, who wants the doll?"

Harpy flew down from the enormous ceiling fan and snatched up the doll like it was another rattatta she would normally eat for supper. She then landed on my desk, and began to make herself at home. She had some old homework papers from Brendan's last year of school gathered around her. She would probably make a nest out of them right on my desk. Great, another mess to clean up tomorrow morning.

* * *

"Heh." Patriot snickered to the absol.

"I know. She has never really shown an interest in anything else-other than battling and eating food," Glade whispered back.

"H-hush please?" Eclipse said as he started to lie down at the place the doll previously occupied.

Patriot listened to Eclipse's advice and found a perch atop Brendan's old T.V. Glade was being stubborn as usual.

"I thought that umbreons never slept at night."

"J-just napping. During the night, I can sleep too."

Brendan hushed the conversation. For the most part, Glade liked having a fellow dark type traveling alongside him, but Eclipse was incredibly boring and shy. If Glade ever wanted a joke, he would have to go to his trainer for internet memes or listen to Harpy rant about some other unnecessary irritating aspect of life. For some reason, he had the suspicion that his trainer liked Eclipse more than his other pokemon. Eclipse was the most obedient, true, but that just made him look more robotic than the others. What was likable in that? But it was only a suspicion. Maybe Brendan could relate to the umbreon in some way...

He glanced up to see what Brendan was doing. He was on his Dexnav again, probably looking for a cool place to vacation to in celebration of his new crowning as champion of the Hoenn region.

* * *

 **I'm sorry. The real fun will only begin in like 6 chapters.**

 **By that, I mean that the official plot is revealed in 6 chapters. Thank you for the clarification, Farla.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I awoke to the sound of the alarm clock blaring in my ear. I wasn't quite sure what happened for the next three seconds, but then I was on the cold morning floor with shredded paper everywhere. I looked up to find everyone laughing at me. Man, why did I always have to make things hysterical? Yes I often did that on purpose, but when I don't try, it just happens anyways. I am Harpy, and my life story so far goes somewhat like this:

I was caught from the wild, forced to do my trainer's bidding at all times, beat the Elite Four, MUSH Team Aqua's stupid fish pokemon, and MUSH the Gyms. All in no particular order. Oh, and look at pictures of grumpy purugly quotes. Anyways, back to the morning when I smashed my nest in alarm. Brendan took all of us downstairs for breakfast. Upon walking down the stairs, I found my Master's mother and children gathered about the dining room table eating eggs and bacon.

"Yum!" I screeched and proceeded to take their bacon.

"Hey! Get off the table!" his mother hollered from the kitchen. I glanced back at my disapproving trainer. I slumped and dropped to the floor. The other pokemon laughed. Even Brendan's baby sister looked amused. Everyone else were upset about the loss of their breakfast.

Later, I overheard with my sharp hearing that Brendan's Mom wanted him to run some errands for her. He wouldn't be back for five hours. Oohh yes. Later Brendan returned us to our respective type of poke ball.

* * *

I saw the light getting brighter. I was ready for battle - or whatever Brendan wanted. But I was surprised to find that it was just Stephen, Master's younger brother. He must have been ten years old by the aura he was radiating. I knew pretty much everything based on my surroundings and an advanced perception of nature. I carried more aura power than most lucario, so I immediately knew that Brendan was nowhere near.

I looked around to find myself in the front yard of the house; my other friends appearing. Once all the pokemon were expectantly looking about the yard for Brendan, Stephen spoke up.

"Hey guys! It looks like he gave me permission to take care of you while he is gone! It's going to be so cool to be walking about Hoenn with the champion's team, huh?!"

"Man. Stephen is really shallow," Lenny said. "It's not like anyone is gonna think he is cool with his brother's pokemon."

"Well, he has no badges so we don't have to listen to him if we don't want to," I said.

Eclipse nodded.

"What!? Master didn't take me with him? How is he going to run errands without my flying skills?" Harpy said.

We all glanced about and sure enough, Patriot was nowhere in sight. I tried to hold in a laugh at the pitifulness that was Harpy and put an arm around her. Stephen was watching our exchange with curiosity. If he was as smart as Brendan, he probably would have already returned us to our poke balls before anything went out of hand. Unfortunately I had to be a part of this.

"Don't make me injure you!" Harpy snapped.

I stepped back nervously. It was true. Harpy had the potential to kill us all if she really wanted to...good thing she wasn't completely mental. Harpy wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck indignantly.

"Okay. I propose we leave this loser and just go exploring!" she said.

The rest of us agreed. So we did what was customary whenever we wanted a quick escape (saved our lives once). We all quickly grabbed the poke ball basket that Brendan left Stephen. All of us tapped our poke balls and disappeared. I went in even though I strongly disagreed with almost every single decision this crazy staraptor made. Peer pressure was a real thing that must be resolved before untimely and unwanted things start happening.

I didn't want to get left behind with Stephen. Of course Harpy didn't return to her timer ball. I knew from the boring darkness of my poke ball that we were probably already over a thousand feet up in the Hoenn sky.

About twenty minutes later, the light returned and I took in my new surroundings. From what I could tell, we were not in Hoenn. There were no tropical plants anywhere in sight. In fact, almost everything was paved. We were in Castelia City. Lenny's mouth dropped open. Eclipse looked relaxed as always, just taking in the change like it was no big deal. But it was. There were people everywhere.

I turned to Harpy, a tad bit upset.

"It would've been nice if you stayed in Hoenn."

"Umm, yeah, I guess," she mumbled, all the while dodging the many feet that surrounded us.

Glade looked at her with a concerned look.

"You have a reason. I can see it in your eyes. But you don't want to tell us."

"Shut up," she said miserably.

Even my aura had a hard time keeping up with her roller coaster of emotions.

"You don't have to talk about it," I said nicely.

Harpy breathed out.

"Thanks. In the meantime, let's explore."

This had to be the most crowded city I've ever seen. Even more crowded than Mauville. If we didn't move fast, we might get turned in to the authorities of Unova. The people were carefully avoiding stepping on us, but it probably wouldn't last much longer until some idiot accidentally does it anyway. Just as I was thinking this, a streak came out of nowhere and struck me in the chest.

There was a loud clanging sound of metal on metal and I fell backwards. Everyone scattered. The pedestrians turned to see who made the crash. A kid had slammed into me on his bicycle, and he had shot off his seat on impact.

"What in the name of Red's easy to wear shorts was THAT?" Harpy hollered.

We all crowded around the kid to see if he was injured. He had a blue jacket on, brown hair that stuck up in many places, and, as we learned a second later, a hasty attitude. He saw Lenny and threw a quick ball at him. The moment the ball made contact, it just bounced off of him like he wasn't even a pokemon. Right. poke ball technology these days was so good that they recognize whether a pokemon has ever been caught before.

The original capture marks the target as its territory, making sure no other poke ball can be used on it. Thank goodness. I knew that we were already drawing way too much attention. We needed an escape plan. The kid looked confused. He pulled out a ball and released his pokemon. Was he seriously challenging us to a battle in the middle of the street? Where did this kid come from? Because he made no dollars to us at all.

"Go, SALAD!" the kid yelled.

He released his pokemon in a flash of light. Even Eclipse was laughing when he saw what it was. Salad was a serperior. It coiled in front of us in the center of the street. Yep, I've officially confirmed to myself that this kid had no respect for the law at all. There were literally signs hanging all throughout the street saying that no pokemon battles were allowed because of the massive disturbance it used to cause at night.

"Salad, Use leaf storm on the flygon!"

Lenny smiled to us.

"I sense trouble," said Glade.

"Shut it," Harpy snapped, "As if we didn't know what leaf storm does. OF COURSE HE'S IN TROUBLE!"

Wow, funny and salty should've never gone together.

"Just take out the kid quick and then we run!" said Eclipse. Lenny took off, dodging the flurry of leaves and landing on a light post. He happily pulled out an array of Poke Puffs, Poffins, Poke Beans, and Poke Blocks from his focus sash and began to eat. The superior angrily began slithering up the post. The calm look Lenny was projecting was probably infuriating the trainer.

"Use your vine whip to pull it down!" the trainer yelled.

"Watch out!" I called.

But he was too late. The hard sharp whip slashed him off the pole and his sash fell to the ground. Luckily, Glade already saw it coming and leapt forward to catch him.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

"Look at those! That looks like a fun game, huh?" I said to Patriot.

He called out in agreement on my shoulder. The Lilycove Department Store was the biggest in the region, and they held everything from full restores and dusk balls to movies and video games. I was looking at the latest Smash Brothers release and wondering if I had enough money to buy a copy. I looked at the tag hanging off the side of the shelf. 60,000 Dollars.

Before my victory over Steven, that would've been a tall order to fill. Now it would be no problem. I picked it up and looked at the details on the back. It featured Greninja, Mewtwo, and Pikachu as the pokemon. Everything else were Nintendo release characters. Unfortunately, I was here for the chores, and Mom wouldn't be pleased if I spent my first day back home playing video games. It would have to wait.

Patriot sadly put down the game and we stepped into the elevator. As I reached over to push the "UP" button, a girl around my age stepped in. Following her close behind was - a swellow. Wonderful. When she saw me, she shouted in surprise. Right, I was the Hoenn champion. Of course I was going to get a lot more attention nowadays. Patriot shot towards the ceiling in shock. If only I could fly in situations like this too.

"Oh wow! It's the champion! I've always wanted to meet you!" she reached out to shake my hand.

I obliged. I wasn't exactly the extroverted type, so being famous was probably going to be the second hardest thing I have and ever will face in my life.

"T-thanks?" I said.

"Your swellow's performance against Steven is our inspiration! I even gave her heat wave as well."

She pointed to the to the bird desperately trying to hide behind her shoe. I noticed Patriot had landed back on my shoulder, his face looking even redder than normal. It must have been my imagination though. I tried to think of a conversation fast.

"Uh, yeah that's cool. So what brought you to Lilycove city?"

"Oh, just on some errands for my grandpa. He needed to restock on his Dynamo badges."

I found it amazing that Wattson was restocking, since he was the hardest gym for me to beat. Maybe my choice of pokemon made it harder for me to win when compared with other people who may favor ground or fire types. I had the feeling that this girl wasn't someone to be trifled with in battle.

"So, Wattson is your grandpa?"

I pushed the up button for the fourth floor.

She turned to glance at her pokemon.

"Yeah. A lot of young trainers have suddenly begun to challenge him a lot more in the light of a child's victory over the champion. He told me a while ago that one certain trainer almost beat him. A Gym leader would normally only hold five badges at a time, but he doesn't mind being too careful."

The elevator door opened. I stepped out into the super secret base department. She followed. Patriot smacked his claw to his face as if to say: _Seriously!?_

I turned back.

"So they sell the badges here?" I asked. Her face turned slightly pink.

"N-no. I forgot that they were on the fifth floor, actually. Whoops..." she turned back towards the elevator and her swellow followed reluctantly.

"Wait!" I called.

She spun around.

"Yes?"

"What's your name?"

"It's Rosa. Hope we meet again soon." She turned back and closed the door.

* * *

I had a feeling that my master was blinder than a zubat. He couldn't _really_ be that dumb, right? Or is my view on his shoulder just better than four inches to my right? He should've used a better pickup line than "Thanks." Or perhaps he didn't know that she liked him.

Then if I could speak to him, I would tell him what an AWFUL job he did... Yes, Brendan was totally aware. A full minute and he's still staring at the elevator. I guess it's now time to knock some sense into him. I mean, come on! This was his first day off the job of being a pokemon trainer!

* * *

I finally got my senses together and began walking to the counter. My Mom had given me a list of all the stuff she needed. I pulled out the paper and memorized it. Suddenly, for some strange reason, Patriot leaned over and pecked me hard on the ear.

"OOWW! What was that for?"

Some people walking by stopped and stared. Patriot was now circling over my head like a halo.

"What?"

Patriot flew back to the elevator and pushed the "UP" button.

"Oh. I see what you're thinking," I said.

He wanted to see the swellow again. Patriot turned back and nodded. The elevator opened and he flew back inside. Oh great. I was gathering another crowd. Being champion was such a chore. I walked back to the elevator.

"I'm sorry I have to do this, and I don't want to be the bad guy here, but it's for your own good."

I raised a luxury ball and shot a white beam at him. It broke my heart to see Patriot's disbelief as he vaporized. We had to finish the shopping. My Pokenav rang loudly, blaring my favorite battle theme. I lifted it to see who was calling. The number had Unova's area code...which was strange. I didn't know anyone from Unova. I answered it.

"Hello?"

The people wandering around me backed away.

"Yes, is this Brendan Bridges?"

I gulped nervously. What could he possibly want with me?

"Yeah... Who is this? Am I in trouble?"

"It's all right. You're not in trouble, actually, not too much trouble. Castelia City PD speaking. We just wanted to let you know that your pokemon have been sighted in our city. We have seen your championship battle videos, and we recognized them the moment we saw them destroying merchandise. I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to pay fees for the damage and come here to claim them."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What were they possibly thinking?! My patience was just wearing thinner and thinner. Was this Stephen's doing? I thanked the man for his information, then hung up. I wasn't in any mood to deal with Patriot, so I walked outside the department store and used the eon flute to call down the Latias. A moment later, she appeared from behind a cloud and dropped down to give me the ride. I made sure that everything was secure, then hopped on.

The trip to Unova wouldn't be long, as all of the known regions were not very far apart, the farthest being one-hundred miles away. Unova was probably only going to be a 30 minute stretch. I pointed Latias in the right direction and soared higher to avoid the flying birds, dragons, and trainers.

* * *

 **Trust me, I know exactly where this is leading. Rosa will probably return in possibly chapters 12-20. Also remember to tell me if there are any grammatical errors.**

 **P.S. From PatrioticSwellow, who is currently working on chapter 29: I AM SUCH A LIAR. Okay, bye.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.P.S. from PatrioticSwellow. Technically, Rosa never returned at all in the entire book. Because...SPOILER ALERT! Go to chapter 25 to see what I mean.**


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Of course, Lenny was okay, but he was not really in the mood for laughter anymore. He dismounted from my back and turned towards Harpy.

"We talk later!"

Salad was closing in fast. Lenny slashed the serperior back with incredible agility. Jaqueline and I cheered while Eclipse applauded. Salad's master looked excited for the challenge. Salad, however, was not as pleased with the battle.

"I am planning to ground you to sand once I beat you!" he shouted.

Lenny zipped back and forth happily. "Well, at least my name isn't SALAD!"

Brendan's team began shouting things like, "YOU JUST GOT ROASTED!" and "OOOOHHHH!".

Eclipse turned to me. "I think we should just get Harpy to finish this serperior off and leave the region before we get discovered."

"I agree," I said, "but we should just leave right now. If we stay and finish the fight, that just puts us at a higher risk."

Deep down I just wanted to leave the city. It was trashed and polluted, and my horn's senses were dulled from the smog. And of course Harpy had to listen to the conversation. I looked up to see her blurry figure in the sky coming down like a meteor. Lenny saw it coming and quickly stepped out of the way. Salad thought that he was feinting, so he held onto what little amount of ground he had. The trainer also saw it, but it was _way_ too late. There was an explosion of leaves and feathers as Harpy made the mark.

We were all blown back against the buildings; when the dust cleared, Harpy was already standing next to us. Salad was in really bad shape. At first, I thought that it was a twisted venusaur, but no. It was a twisted mangled mess of plant. The trainer gasped and immediately recalled his pokemon.

Thankfully, it would take more than a bloody (or leafy) mangled mess to kill a pokemon. Perhaps it would have 200 years ago. The boy walked up to our group carefully. I turned to Jaqueline for instruction.

"It's okay, he means no harm." she said.

"I know that you guys aren't wild, because my pokemon almost always never lose battles," the kid said, "even if it was completely unfair."

We all turned and glared at Harpy.

"Hey! It wasn't my fault! It was Eclipse's idea!"

Jaqueline shook her head in disbelief. "I seriously doubt that."

"Well, you heard the lucario, so your argument is invalid," I said.

Eclipse laughed. She turned and glared at me. I shrunk back. Why were both Harpy and Jaqueline super effective against me? Life was never fair I guess. I looked back at the kid. He was watching us with a curious expression on his face, as if he was trying to remember something. Suddenly his face cleared out of his thoughts.

"Holy crap! You are the Hoenn champions! I saw your profiles on the billboard yesterday but for only a second. No wonder you are so powerful!"

A crowd began to gather around us. They were pointing and taking pictures.

"Now look what you did!" Harpy shouted at Eclipse.

He closed his eyes and took the shouting straight on. _When was he going to learn to defend himself?_

"I think it's time for us to go," I said.

"Yes, lets," Jaqueline agreed. "Harpy, when we go, you make _sure_ that we are going straight back to Littleroot. Understand?"

Harpy's mood improved unreasonably quickly. There was a mischievous glint in her eye for sure. I was worried, but at least we could trust Harpy not to get caught by the Police or something. Jaqueline sighed and ran to the basket that was stashed underneath a public garbage can. The people still kept a reasonable distance from the team, which could easily wipe out the entire crowd if they really wanted to.

She returned to us a second later. She held it close to the street to keep the cameras from watching. Eclipse was the first to disappear into his quick ball, followed by Lenny and Jaqueline. I went next, and was engulfed in a gentle darkness.

* * *

 **Rate and review! Please?**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I could smell the air get dirtier and sharper as we flew on. We must've been on the right track then. I remembered the phone call I got earlier. _There is probably a perfectly logical explanation for all of this,_ I thought to myself. I dug my legs deeper into Latias's back to anchor myself while I pulled out my only poke ball. I pressed the button, and Patriot appeared in a flash of white light.

"CAWW!" he shouted.

After a moment, he stabilized the air currents. I watched him apprehensively. Was he still angry at me? Then Patriot began dive-bombing my head.

"Getoff! I'm sorry I had you cramped up, okay!"

He showed no sign of stopping anytime soon. Latias looked back and made a sound which seemed like laughing. I had to smile too in spite of the pain. But seriously, it was starting to hurt bad.

"Want a chocolate puff?" I surrendered.

The pain stopped.

"Just wait 'til we land, okay?"

Patriot made happy graceful loops in the clouds, but stopped when he realized that they weren't clouds at all. Well, they _were_ clouds, just not the water vapor kind. I had to laugh, but stopped when I remembered how paranoid swellows could get if they weren't clean. I looked ahead and sure enough-Unova was in sight.

"Patriot, look for the biggest city! Because that's where we need to land!"

He found it very quickly. He called back and motioned for us to follow. As we approached the city, I noticed some strange activity going on below. There was a lynch mob style gathering, and they were all watching as a bird ascended from the street. I could see the cameras flashing from where we were. Patriot looked back at me in shock.

* * *

I watched in fascination as Harpy rose from the street with a wrapped basket hanging from her claws. I pumped my narrow wings harder and shot down to meet her. She saw me coming and immediately flew in my direction. I turned myself back around and led Harpy to the hovering latias.

"Good job Patriot!" Brendan yelled over the rush of wind.

I was about to hold a long enlightening conversation with Harpy, but was interrupted by another flash of white light preceded by darkness.

* * *

Life could be so unfair. Brendan didn't even take us sightseeing at the famous relic castle desert. Hoenn's desert in route 111 was nothing special except for a strange rock formation on the south side. When I reached Latias, he took the basket from my claws and made sure that every poke ball was accounted for.

"Thank goodness," he said.

I looked about and just realized that Patriot was already returned to his ball. Brendan clipped the poke balls back onto his belt, then held out my capsule. In an instant, I was shrunk down to the size of an oreo and returned back to my simulated bird nest. I didn't pace the floor this time. I went straight into the twigs and fell asleep. Little did I know that this was the calm before the storm. Life was about to get ugly.

* * *

 **I have come to a conclusion on what it would be like inside of a poke ball. In Alpha Sapphire, when I see a pokemon evolve, I could totally see the platform being the floor inside of a poke ball. There is a rainbow kind of mist in the back and the space around the platform looks circular. Hope you keep reading on! Please leave comments for grammar errors and suggest cool ways that the plot could advance. Trust me, I read what you have to say.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

I turned Latias around and told her to fly at her fastest. She looked back at me as if she wanted to say something.

"What is it?" I asked.

I really didn't want to deal with this anymore. What could possibly be so important?

"Alright, show me what the problem is, but make it quick."

Latias turned back to face the large island that Unova was situated on. She bolted back towards Castelia City. I groaned inside. I still had to pay my fees for the damage. I hoped that Mom didn't need the groceries anytime soon. We were just one hundred feet above the tallest skyscraper when I let Latias go.

"Thanks for the ride."

I pulled out Harpy's poke ball and rode her down onto the Main Street in front of the pokemon center. A city official was already waiting in the front.

"Hello!" I called.

The man didn't look unhappy or anything, for which I was grateful. I wouldn't be able to take any more stress.

"How are you? And before I say anything more, we should get inside. Unova is holding a black Friday today. Better if we don't get mown down, right?"

I nodded. He led the way inside the pokemon Center and directed me to one of the couches on the side. It was crowded with trainers and small pokemon. I was actually kind of glad for the stuffiness; I was practically invisible. We sat down, with me waiting apprehensively.

"Can we please get the payments done quickly? I need to get back to my house," I said.

The man just laughed lightly.

"Kid, the most damage your pokemon did was a scrape on a lamp post. The city's insurance will cover that with no problem."

I was getting even more tired and bewildered than before. Yes, I was shocked, but it didn't show on my face.

"Really? Then why...-"

"-This is about something even more important than you can imagine at the moment. We are in no hurry-it's not like they're following us."

 _Oh no._ If this was going to turn into something like what I saw in the movies as a kid...well I just would never be a part of it.

"Okay, first of all, who do you work with? Because I know now that you aren't with the police. And second, who the heck could possibly be following you?"

"Tone it down Brendan. All of your questions will be answered if you cooperate. But first..."

The man pulled out a strange device in the shape of a paper towel roll. It had only two dials and one switch located at the base. He held the silver tube behind his back. Brendan realized that pokemon Centers must've been protected from theft by the hidden security cameras. No one in the general public has ever seen them, but it was evident that they were there. He turned the dials as if he was adjusting a frequency, then flipped the switch. Brendan could only stare.

"What in the world?"

The tube showed no sign of being on, but the man seemed satisfied that it was doing the job.

"What is it?" Brendan wondered.

The guy took his eyes of the machine.

"Oh, that's not important to you. But I guess it could be. It all depends on whether you'll cooperate with me. First I have to tell you the things that the resistance have licensed me to say."

I looked at him suspiciously.

"That has to be the cheesiest thing I've ever heard! This isn't a prank right? Want to get me on the BuzzNav? Because I won't fall for-"

"-Please. Hear me out. I promise that you won't appear on BuzzNav. But let's just say that our cause is urgent. First I want your promise to never ever tell anyone what I am about to tell you."

Something clicked in my head.

"Wait! Hold on a minute."

"What?" the man asked.

I reached down to my belt and pulled out Jaqueline's poke ball. The man got off the couch and stepped back worriedly.

"It's alright," I said. He stepped forward again.

"If you are going to show me one of your pokemon, we should find a less public place."

I agreed. As we cleared the exit of the Center, I asked what his name was.

"Alec," he said.

* * *

 **Rate and review!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Alec and I located a café entrance in the middle of one of the shady alleyways.

"Don't worry. We won't be discovered," he said.

We stepped into the cramped dining area of the café. There was only one table occupied with people, and they only looked like street thugs. So of course, we had nothing to fear. We sat down as far as we could from them at a dusty table.

"What do you have to show me?" said Alec.

I took Jaqueline's poke ball and released her. She materialized in a crouching position on the floor. In the dim lighting, she seemed to glow with a powerful aura.

"Nice," he said.

I turned to her.

"I need you to please check this man's honesty while we're talking. Could you do that?" she nodded.

I patted her head, then turned back to Alec. He looked very anxious. Jaqueline walked to a nearby bench and sat down.

"Tell me everything," I said.

Alec collected himself, then started.

"First of all, I don't want any interruptions until the end. Got it?" I nodded.

He kept his voice down so that the people in the back couldn't hear.

"There is an explanation why people start their pokemon journeys at such a young age. There is also a good reason why Pokemon Championships are held and a champion crowned. You see- the championships are actually trials, and not the game kind of trials. These trials are run by a very bad organization behind the scenes. The previous league champion was recently overthrown a few years ago by this trainer-Nate."

My eyes darkened. I considered him my rival the moment I heard that news. It only drove me to make even more irrational decisions when I was combating the League. Alec looked at me curiously.

"Do you know Nate?"

"No," I said, "But let's just say that I have been his secret rival since his victory over the champion. Also what in the depths of he-"

"-I can understand that. Also pay close attention. This is very important to your survival."

"TO MY SURVIVAL!?"

The men looked across the room.

" _Shut up._ " Alec hissed, "You want to get us in trouble?"

"Sorry," I said.

"I kind of wished that you didn't win the championship, because you are such a good kid and you don't deserve what could happen to you. But you have passed the test, and now they want to take you away from society. They will take your pokemon, and lock you away in a cell until you rot or join them."

I was beginning to go pale with fright. Alec was telling the truth. Jaqueline was shaking badly when she realized that this man's auras didn't waver.

"So...All that this organization wants to do is steal the champion's pokemon? That seriously can't be their only objective, right?"

"That is correct. The only reason trainers are set out on quests is because the bad people behind the scenes want to cover their...corruption. That is what we call them. The Corruption."

I thought carefully.

"...And the clever trainers who manage to make it into the Elite Four challenge... They are just too occupied with the prospect of winning to be figuring them out. Right?"

Alec nodded.

"So what do they do exactly? Besides stealing pokemon?"

Alec folded his arms at the question.

"Listen, we can't speak for much longer. We have to get you back home. The Corruption own the PC systems as well. Remember, it's not like they are just another team out to destroy everything in existence. This is practically the _government._ They track our poke balls and our trainer IDs. They have access to all of our accounts. Luckily, you have never deposited your pokemon in the PC by now. Otherwise, they would have already taken them away and found you."

"So if the government owns the PC systems, then how come no trainers report that their pokemon have been stolen yet?"

"It's simple. The creators behind the Pokemon League don't want to get discovered. They are careful and subtle. If they just start taking everything away-"

"-All right. I see what you mean. But what can I do about it? And if there really are trackers built into our poke balls, then how come I haven't been found yet?"

"That is exactly what this is for," said Alec, holding up the metal cylinder, "It blocks the transmitter's signal for up to ten feet. I am going to let you take it with you back to your house so they can't find you. You are especially going to be a target if they knew that you know."

"But what can I do about it?"

"Well, you could always join us. But feel free to just carry this device around with you wherever you go, even if you choose not to join. It's all up to you." he put his hand into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a card.

"This will show you where to find us. And here is the Cloud Cover Machine." he handed me the device and the card.

I quickly put them in my items pocket.

"Thank you," I said.

We stood up from the table and walked to the door, with Jaqueline following close behind.

"Wait a minute," I said, "How do I know that they haven't already found me? They had three years already to track my every movement!"

He put a hand on my shoulder.

"You don't have to worry. They have only just begun to track you. There is really not much point for them to keep close tabs on you for the past three years. Only the important trainers get that privilege. Just keep that machine on at all times, and you should be fine."

A few minutes later, I was on Harpy's back, headed for Hoenn. I would consider Alec's offer to join, but I was just barely getting my life back...

* * *

 **Hey guys, I just wanted to say sorry for this drag of a chapter. The real fun is about to begin though! If you don't like violence, then I would suggest you turn away for the next few chapters...**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **Update: See chapter 38 for violence.**


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

I stumbled across the threshold to my house.

 _Finally._ I thought to myself. _Time to sleep._

"Hello?" I called out. No response. I shut the door behind me and locked it. I went over to my Mom's bedroom down the hall and knocked. A muffled voice answered back.

"Huh?"

A moment later, the door opened and my Mom stepped out in her nightclothes. Then she saw who it was.

"Oh. You're back. I was worried about you."

We hugged. A little while later in my room, I lifted my Pokenav to check the time. Ten o'clock. I avoided talking to her about what I had learned in Unova. As long as I had the Cloud Cover Machine plugged in or charged, I was in no hurry to tell her about the danger I could be in. We said good night, and I walked to my room.

Before I slept, I turned on my lamp and took a look at the card Alec had given me.

We would be glad to accept you as a member

of the Cloud Cover, dedicated to stopping privacy

infringement and too much control over the people

of Hoenn. If you are interested, contact -Alec Boldswhiler-

at: (Dexnav Address)

I switched off the light and just sat there in the dark. A plague of questions bombarded me. Should I tell Professor Birch about my dilemma tomorrow? Should I join them at all? But I'm just a kid!...A kid who is the champion... No. Whoever Alec was affiliated with clearly needed help from a little kid. That made perfect sense. Yeah, they just sent him over here to disrupt my life yet again, even though that I've already saved the world once from Team Aqua. Wait, not once, but twice. Zinnia would be proud.

After a few minutes of my internal torture, I finally fell into a tempest-tossed sleep. Darkrai blessed my dreams that night.

* * *

I woke with a start. I rubbed my eyes, then got out of bed. A loud snapping noise woke me up. I was sure of it. I then happened to glance at the small crack under my bedroom door...A glowing orange light was emanating from it. I also heard a strange crackling sound on the other side. As my mind became sharper from waking up, my mind began to put the puzzle pieces together. My face paled just as the house alarm went off and the wailing sound of a rescue team's trucks could be heard in the distance. My house was on fire.

* * *

 **Sorry about the lie. The REAL action starts next chapter! I promise. I am also very sorry for this chapter being so short. Good thing I'm making it even longer by writing this apology!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

I yelled as loudly as I could. I stumbled to the door and ripped it open. The whole hallway was engulfed with flames. I frantically looked for another exit back in my room. The window! I pulled open the seal and looked out over the rest of Littleroot. There was the fire truck below with people surrounding the burning house. Immediately everyone saw me. I was relieved when I saw my whole family safe down below. My mom was screaming, and there was an officer there to comfort her. My mind cleared of panic.

I understood that I would always be safe as long as I was with my pokemon. I looked down at my belt and picked out Patriot. He appeared in a bright flash, and was startled to see what was happening. He let out a sharp cry.

"Carry me down fast!" I yelled over the flames.

Patriot held out his sharp claws, and I grabbed onto them. I jumped off, using him as a parachute. I sadly looked back at my room, probably for the last time. Every eye watched my descent. When I landed, May ran up from her astonished parents to greet me.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

"How do you think it happened?"

"I really don't know. Maybe a joltik chewed through our wiring."

My family ran up to me. They all looked gray from the smoke, but were otherwise unharmed. Dad was also there, looking deeply concerned and upset. After a while, my mom got the hint that I wanted to be left alone with May.

"Let's take a walk or something," she said.

We wandered out into route 101. It was dark, but slowly getting brighter as the sun was rising. We walked in silence for a moment, quickly approaching Odale town. I was thinking about all of the possibilities on how the fire started. It was just barely truly sinking in that our family lost everything. Tears welled up in my eyes. May saw them but pretended not to.

"You know, it'll all be fine. You're the pokemon champion! I bet there will be donations for you to get a new house." she said.

The moment she said this, I froze. May looked back ten seconds later, wondering why I had stopped walking.

"What?"

I paled and began to shake.

"Oh no," I said. "NO!"

May stepped back, wondering if I had finally broken down to the pressure.

"What?"

Everything now made sense to me. Everything was probably Alec's fault! He could've given me the tracker so then he could find my house. Well then, who'd care if the contact card was burned in the fire... _But wait a minute, I was forgetting something. Jaqueline trusted him. He couldn't have lied to me at any point in our conversation._ Jaqueline was always right one-hundred percent of the time. Then was the machine faulty? I didn't know what to believe, but I knew that it wasn't Alec's fault.

"Oh man. May, I have to go now. Don't follow me!" I called back as I broke into a sprint.

But before I could go any further than ten feet, a gray shadow jumped out of one of the bushes lining the route. May screamed.

"What...Do you think...You're doing?" grunted a familiar voice.

It was Alec. I knew it! It was him the whole time! I kept thrashing about in the dirt. May ran up to us, releasing her blaziken.

"Use blaze kick!" He responded immediately, landing the blow with amazing accuracy.

I struggled free of the man's grip. Alec lay there moaning.

"Good job Flare. Return."

After recalling her pokemon, she turned to me.

"Who is he-"

"Shut UP! I came to warn you!" Alec cried out. "The house fire was caused by a scout in advance. The flames is the signal for the Corruption to close in. We have to leave this place. NOW!"

I believed him.

"But my family! We have to get them out of here!"

Alec frantically fought the pain as he stood up.

"They don't need them. They'll be fine. But us on the other hand...No arguments. We leave now."

May just stood there dumbstruck.

A faint buzzing sound could be heard overhead. Its volume increased until we could see what it was. A helicopter rose into view - a dark silhouette against the dim sky with searchlights.

"RUN!" Alec roared.

We took off down the road towards Odale town as fast as we possibly could, avoiding the sweeping lights. And of course, karma decided to play a joke on me. May and I collided head on in the dark. We shouted in agony. Our poke balls detached from our magnetic belts and tumbled in every direction. I forced myself to recover from the shock and began to locate as many poke balls as possible. The chopper was nearly onto us.

"Just leave them!" Alec shouted back to me.

It was just bright enough for him to see what had happened. I wouldn't do that in a million years. I kept at it until I had all of them in my arms.

THWACK!

I looked ahead to see Alec crumpled to the ground. I barely had time to react when I felt a quick jab in the back. An overpowering drowsy feeling washed over me that only lasted for a second. I was already knocked out before I hit the floor.

* * *

 **So yeah. Instant confirmation that Brendan isn't dead. Didn't want to scare the kiddies. Is my story going in the right direction? Was it too rushed? PLEASE TELL ME! If you don't, then it will never get fixed. As always, rate and review please!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

It was amazing to me how fast a dream could turn into a nightmare. I kept pinching myself to see if it was just a darkrai messing with my head. Sadly, everything felt way too real for it to be an illusion. I hugged my wife while we stood alongside the professor and several curious zigzagoons. The fire was still raging badly and the roof was near collapsing. I knew that it would be way too late for anything to be recovered.

"Norman."

I looked up. There was a firefighter standing just a few feet away, his yellow hat shading his face from the moon.

"Yes?" I said.

"I'm sorry to say that this house is already damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, you could request the recovery papers from Allregion Insurance right now to save the price you would have to pay."

That was a relief to me. I had just barely covered the cost of Allregion Insurance only a few months before.

"That's good to know. Thank you."

The man nodded and walked away. I turned to my wife.

"We don't have to be watching this, you know."

She took her eyes off the burning house. I could feel the water vapor of the hoses and floatzels washing over us.

"I know. We should probably find a place to stay while a new house is rebuilt. What about the Birch's place? They probably wouldn't mind."

I shook my head.

"Maybe for a week or two. But we seriously should just consider moving away all together. There are plenty of good houses in Rustboro, and they are still close to the gym. I agree with you that we should probably stay with the Birch's for now, though."

We settled the matter. Birch said that we could stay with his family for a month at maximum. I remembered seeing Brendan and May walking towards route 101. I left my wife with the professor and walked out into the light brush of the forest. I needed to tell Brendan what our plans were.

After a few minutes of walking, I heard a lot of shouting and grunting up ahead. My heart rate spiked. Were they in trouble? I ran as fast as I possibly could without smashing into the tree that passed every now and then. The shouting abruptly stopped. I kept going, but more stealthily. I came to a huge clearing where Brendan and May were having a panicked conversation with someone. I crouched behind a bush to listen in.

"They don't need them. They'll be fine. But us on the other hand...No arguments. We leave now," said the man.

I was ready to spring out and tackle this creep to the ground, but a faint buzzing sound stopped me. Time seemed to hold me still as its volume increased. A helicopter rose into view, large and dark with flashing searchlights panning the forest floor. My gym leader's reasoning wasn't good enough to whip me into action. Fear held me frozen in place, which was something that has never happened before. _Come on! MOVE! COME ON!_ I stayed still, disbelieving that this was actually happening to me.

"RUN!" the dark man yelled.

I watched as they ran past me in the dark. The helicopter's lights cut through the dark until one of them landed on the strange man. I watched in horror as the chopper fired something from an unseen gun. He almost immediately collapsed. I finally jumped out of my hiding place, my mind screaming _"IDIOT!"_ the whole way.

I was far behind Brendan, and feared that it would be too late to protect him. The chopper shot again, this time striking the silhouette of May in the back. I held back a scream. My son was next. I realized that being alone was my weakness here. I finally got my muscles to work, and with the speed of a gym leader, I pulled out the poke ball holding my pidgeot. I held her beak shut the moment she materialized.

"Listen, get me to Littleroot as fast as you can, but avoid being seen by that helicopter."

THWACK!

Brendan was down. I tried to keep my mind as cool as possible. I hopped onto my pidgeot's back and got to the professor's house in record time.

* * *

 **Hey! Congrats if you got this far in the book. Please post as much criticism as you possibly can.**

 **If you have read all of the previous chapters (probably), then you should revisit the prologue. There is a new introduction that came along with the chapter 10 update.**

 **I realized that fanfics are always better when it doesn't start with the stereotypical fanfiction pokemon battle. That issue is now fixed. Also, remember to include story and plot twist ideas in the reviews.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Upon arriving, Norman found that the fire department had already done its job and was just checking that all of the cinders were cooled out. He shouted as loud as he could.

"HELP!"

Immediately, all of the townspeople who were awakened by the fire turned to look at the exit onto route 101. They recognized the gym leader on his pidgeot.

"What is it?" a spectator asked.

"Just follow quick!"

And with that, Norman turned his pokemon around and accelerated back into the forest at high speeds. The inactive fire men responded first. They took off into the trees in hot pursuit.

* * *

I hoped to Arceus that I was going to make it in time. If the strange people in the aircraft managed to take them and run before we arrived, I knew that I would never be able to catch up to it. I knew Edwin's limitations, and his fastest speed was only around one hundred miles per hour. I looked back for just a second to see if anyone was following. I heard the sound of the helicopter, but didn't see it. It must have been grounded. Thankfully, I saw some people catching up to us on their pokemon. A zebstrika was now traveling at lightning speed below us. An instant later, we burst into the clearing. What we saw made my stomach drop. The three of them were already sitting in the backseats, and bound in rope. They were completely knocked out. I already knew that they were tranquilized, and not shot, because there would be no other good reason to be hunting someone just to kill them. Unless, of course, it was revenge.

I had never seen these people before, and thus I knew that it couldn't be revenge. My heart sank as more and more people entered the clearing, seeing the champion bound and unconscious. We were too late. The chopper was already lifting off the ground at an amazing pace. At least the people saw it happen. I told everyone who saw the whole thing to let me take care of the first call. They agreed and left. I stood there in the quiet morning, the dark dying as the sun continued its ascent. I sat down and cried. What was Julie going to say about this? She was already a wreck with our house burnt to the ground. I looked back up, already expecting this to be the worst day of my entire life. The sunlight's rays finally crept out from behind Mt. Chimney, lighting up the clearing. A flash of red and white "caught" my eye. I squinted over and realized that it was multiple flashes of red and white.

There were poke balls scattered all over the edge of the clearing. I felt some relief when I came to the realization that these must have been dropped by Brendan and May. There were eight of them in total. My heart rate sped up. This was perfect! I could definitely use these pokemon to help me rescue him if the police turned out to be crap.

* * *

Norman sat in his desk at the back of the gym. He pulled out the named poke balls and released all three of them at once. They appeared in bright flashes, and looked very confused when they saw who it was and where they were. They began to converse with each other. They payed him no mind as he thought about his options. After a few minutes of thinking, he decided to call the police. He pulled out his Pokenav and dialed them.

"Hoenn police department. How can we help you?"

Norman leaned his chair back against the wall.

"Yes, this is Norman Bridges, leader of the Petalberg gym. My son has been taken by someone...or something. Please help me find him."

Brendan's pokemon went berserk when they heard the news. Jaqueline looked up in shock. Harpy banged her head against the gym floor, creating huge gash marks. Eclipse watched them freak with an almost invisible crease on his face. Norman noticed the reaction and immediately resolved that if the police didn't help, he would return these pokemon to their rightful trainer. Actually, he decided to help either way. There was a moment's pause.

"Ok. What is his name?"

"Brendan Bridges."

There was a quick intake of breath on the other end.

"You mean to say that the champion was abducted?"

"That's correct. He has brown hair, blue eyes, and normally carries a green backpack. He may still have a pokemon with him, but I'm not sure. I watched as a helicopter dropped down, and abducted him and our neighbor's daughter. I called the townspeople to come witness the abduction, because they had weapons that I alone couldn't stop."

There was a soft clicking sound on the other end of the phone.

"So...You mean to say that you put almost the entire town in danger just so you could witness the abduction?"

Norman had his answer ready, living up to the fact that he was a gym leader with good short notice responses.

"No. You see...If I was the only witness of the abduction, no one would believe me. Especially since helicopters are almost never seen in Hoenn. But when there is a large crowd at the scene, they wouldn't dare to shoot. They would be captured on the Buzznav almost immediately. And for some psychopathic reason they actually did shoot, well, they would be dealt with accordingly. In the meantime I would have saved my son and my friend's daughter."

"I guess that would make sense," the man said. "You did good today, bro."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Uhh..."

"We have notified everyone in the area of your son's disappearance. And look at _that_. I just got some reports from other people to back you up."

"Good. Always call me if you have any questions."

* * *

It has been quiet in my poke ball for some time. I detected that something really bad must have happened, but to what or whom I didn't know. I was grateful that Brendan never used me as a fortune teller (or I could say misfortune) because I was never all that accurate. I was also thankful for the other pokemon in my team - accepting me into their circle of friendship even with the misinformation that I was a bringer of disasters. Absols lead harder lives than most people and pokemon think. My internal clock said that it was sometime in the late morning. The reflections put me back to sleep a few minutes later.

"Oh wow! Is this the champion's absol?"

I stirred in the soft grass.

"Yeah dude. I think it is! Remember? He has the cut mark on his blade. Do you realize how much money we could make of we returned him?"

"Probably thousands! The champion is rich, you know. Let's go return him right now."

I finally got the strength to stand up and see who it was. It was two teenagers, fourteen at the youngest.

They gasped audibly when I turned to them. I wasn't a happy camper, and it showed clearly on my dark face. I knew my own way home, thank you very much. I guess that I did owe them for letting me out, but it was not even close for them to be taking money from my master's checkbook. They tried to approach me, but I wouldn't have it. I swiped forward at them with my claws, making them scream for their lives and run as fast as they possibly could. I had to smile.

Those kids wouldn't be bothering us again. I picked up the luxury ball with my mouth and began walking towards the Petalburg gym. I remembered the battle that I had won for Brendan there. I knew that was the place where I could find the answers I needed.

* * *

 **Remember to review please!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

I woke out of my dreamless daze completely exhausted. I opened my eyes, but all I saw was darkness. I was also strapped to a chair, conveniently bolted to the floor.

"Hello?" I called out.

"Hush!"

"W-who's there?"

"It's me, Alec. You know, the guy who tried to save you?"

It was hard to recognize him with his scratchy voice.

"Yeah, I know. Where are we?" I wondered.

"I don't know," he said. "I have a bag over my head."

"Hello?" a different voice called out. May was with us.

"It's Brendan. I'm glad you're all right."

"Me too. How are we going to get out of here? I'm also wondering what in the depths of distortion is going on!"

"It's a group we call the 'Corruption'. We have spies here that could help us escape, but I only know one person here. We need to find him without getting caught," said Alec.

"Who's 'we'?" May asked.

"I am with the Cloud Cover. Our job is to protect Hoenn from security breaches and dexmail leaks. We also plant devices in the ground in various places, to help prevent them from tracking a trainer's location."

I envisioned May's mouth falling open in shock. That was probably what I looked like when he told me the truth. Anyways, for the next five minutes, Alec told May everything that he told me at the cafe. By the end, she had a few questions just like I did.

"So why would they want to track our locations? Why would they care?"

"Think about it," Alec said, "If they know where everyone is, then they could just do whatever they want whenever they feel like it. They can also access our trainer IDs that way. If they wanted to, they could just buy from your card."

"What about our pokemon?"

"That's how they track us. The poke ball factory in Kalos has specially built their products to have tracking capabilities. That's why the Cloud Cover uses privately made poke balls."

May groaned loudly.

"I'm sorry May. I got you into this mess," I confessed.

"No. It wasn't your fault. But what are they going to do to us?"

"It's my fault. It was my job to take care of you guys. Brendan, when you left Unova, I saw some people take after you a few minutes later. But let's not dwell on it. We will worry about that later. First, we escape." said Alec urgently.

I tried to grasp for my poke balls, but my hands were tied behind my back.

"Dang it...and how are we supposed to leave if we can't even reach our pokemon..." Suddenly, I realized something.

"No."

"What now?" Alec groaned. My throat constricted in panic.

"Remember when I crashed into May when we were running?" I asked.

"Yes, but didn't you pick some of them up?" Alec asked quietly. It was obvious that he didn't want to be overheard by anyone near the room. It was most likely that there were microphones and cameras all over the place.

"I did, but I don't feel their weight. Someone must have taken them!" I felt naked without my pokemon. They were the primary source of my courage and hope. May began to sob when the realization that we were screwed finally reached us. I was also feeling very emotionally weak and vunerable-the perfect time for someone to impose.

"So, it seems that you kids have finally woken up. This guy was up hours before you, just waiting patiently for something interesting to happen," a new voice said. I didn't recognize it, so I just went straight for the defiance.

"Who are you?"

"You may call me Arvil. Don't ask for my last name, because you aren't going to get it. I am the founder of the Elites, a society dedicated to the protection of people and pokemon alike. And I am here to extend a welcoming visit to you all. You should all consider yourselves lucky that you get to meet the center of all this success that we have reached over the twenty years that we have been in operation."

"If you are really dedicated to the protection of people, then why did you kidnap us?" asked May.

"There is always a cost to success. There will always be a bill for achievement. Have you ever read that great novel by Orson Scott Card?"

I shook my head. I really didn't care what Arvil had to say about the book-just wondering when the fold would come off. For all I knew, we were probably surrounded by feraligatrs at that very moment.

"You should read it. It tells the story of a boy who had led a misguided life in a world facing an alien invasion. He played games at this place called 'Battle School', where he learned that in time, he would be the only hope left for mankind's survival. Little did Ender know that he was the only chance for them to make it. You young people are like Ender, in a way. Probably not as genius minded, but very bright. One of you have already achieved the goal to become a pokemon regional champion. You could be of great value to our cause."

"And what _is_ your cause, exactly?" Alec asked. I figured he just wanted to hear the Elites's goal in the founder's own words.

"We have many causes, but they all orbit one magnificent goal," Arvil said, "And that's to keep humans and pokemon safe. Did you know what life used to look like before we came to be? There was a great war in the Kalos region some two-hundred years ago, similar to the one that took place three-thousand years prior. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. We are the main influence to stop things like that to happen again."

I wanted to scoff at this man, but my face was still covered and my hands still tied behind my back. _Does this mean that Steven also works for the Elites? Or was he just a puppet, unknowingly working for a strange government?_

"And how do you do that?" Alec asked.

"Enough questions for now," Arvil said calmly. "I don't want to give away all my secrets right now!"

"What are you going to do to us?" May asked.

"Oh, I am just going to introduce you to the others." Arvil said.

I strained against my seat, but the hard ropes wouldn't give. Who were the others? I didn't know what he had in store for us, but I trusted that Alec would find a way for us to escape. I suddenly felt a hand grip the bag over my head and pull it off. For the first time in several hours, I was able to take in my surroundings. Sure enough, I was in a large cell with nothing except for chairs and a concrete floor. The lights were dimmed, but my eyes have already adjusted due to being in the dark for so long. First I saw May, then Alec. Then Arvil. Just looking at his face made me hate him even more for ruining my life-which led me to my next question.

"Did you burn down my house?"

Arvil smiled a sad smile.

"Like I said, there is always a cost to success. Believe me, we tried to get to you before you returned home, but we were forced to 'scare you out'-for lack of a better term."

Alec stared at him incredulously.

"You seriously had no other way to get him? Do you realize how much money you costed his family? If you think you are the actual _government_ , then we would all be better off moving away from Hoenn altogether."

I could tell Alec was trying to probe more information for the Cloud Cover, in the event that we ever escaped in the first place. I also still had no idea what these people were trying to accomplish other than what Alec told me, and for some reason Arvil thought that tracking peoples' locations was okay. I came to the conclusion that he was delusional.

"What's your name?" asked Arvil, staring at Alec with distain.

"Why is that important?"

"Never mind," Arvil said. "As long as you cooperate, you can keep the blindfolds off. But right now, we are going to take a look at what we do here." He snapped his fingers, and the ropes loosened. I wished that I had a knife or a baseball bat to take this psychopath down. May stood up, and I followed suit.

"What about me?"

I looked back to see Alec still tied to the chair.

"Right, so you won't be following us," said Arvil.

 _Arceus, save us,_ I thought to myself.

* * *

I tapped my claws against the entrance of the pokemon gym of Petalburg city. A few seconds later, a round man with a grim face opened the door for me. A look of shock and fear showed on his face for just a second, then he recognized me.

"Well if it isn't everyone's favorite absol!" he said as he opened the door wider to let me in.

"Norman is in the back. Just follow me."

I nodded. He led me to a room with two doors at the far end of the wall. He kept picking the left one, until-

"Oh look, It's Glade!" someone shouted.

We just reached the back room, which I recognized. Oh, the good ol' days. Jaqueline and Harpy rushed forward to greet me while Eclipse looked on from the back. Harpy reached the door, winded from the short dash. Unfortunately, Lenny and Patriot were nowhere to be seen.

"Where have you been? I think the grass grew several inches while you were gone."

"I was just-"

"Oh and did you hear? Brendan was taken by these weird guys in a helicopter! What-"

"WHAT!?" I exclaimed.

"I know," Jaqueline said.

"I knew something was wrong this morning," I mumbled. "So what are we going to do about it?"

"We could go after him," Eclipse said, now standing closer to better hear the conversation.

I had to agree with that. The police force in Hoenn was pretty light and wimpy compared to a more populated region like Unova or Kalos. I sensed the tension even before I was released from my poke ball. Norman walked up.

"Hello? What's your name again?" he said to me.

"Glade."

"I don't remember, so I'll just call you Absol."

 _You don't say._

Harpy was laughing her head off. Norman looked confused at the exchange.

"...All right then. Don't worry about Brendan. We will get him back as soon as we can."

"Did he just say 'we'?" Jaqueline asked.

I thought it over. Having a human with us would probably be for the best, just to keep Harpy's antics in check. But he could also be a drag to us. His rational decisions may appear irrational to us.

"I vote we just get out of this distortion-hole and leave daddio," Harpy said. Unfortunately, arguing with Harpy could mean pain, and there really wasn't anything to lose.

"Let's go," I said.

* * *

 **End** of chapter.

* * *

 **You're welcome to take a look at the plans for chapter 12. This was my first time even writing them on paper, so I decided to post this as well in case you're interested (probably not).**

* * *

 _Important terms for the books:_

 _The Corruption- What the resistance calls the bad guys_

 _The Elites- What the bad guys call themselves_

 _Colress- A man who works for the resistance_

 _The Cloud Cover- What the resistance calls themselves_

 _Idiotic fools/resistance/cloud cover- What the bad guys call the resistance_

 _CCM- (Cloud Cover Machine) A machine that stops poke ball tracking for a 20 foot radius_

 _CHAPTER 12 PLANS:_

 _Alec brendan and may discuss how alec knew to warn them about being followed. apparently he saw some people in unova begin to pursue brendan on the latias. This is in the detainment cell. May is reassuring everyone that help will come. Brendan argues that no one saw the abduction and that they were going to be stuck there forever. A man enters the cell._

 _"So you're awake," he said._

 _Hatch-man shows brendan the battle video and flatters him on the genius. Brendan won't be flattered by his trubbish, but still eats up the compliments. Alec wont buy it though. Let us out! he said. Hatch-man said: "That will only depend on how well you will cooperate. Because if you don't, trust me, you will lose your pocket monsters one by one."_

 _And that's where we will leave chapter 12, unless the conversation turns out too short and we will get back to Glade's POV. Got it?_

* * *

 **Please, if you have any suggestions for the next chapters, please tell me. I know I said it twice but I need ideas NOW!**

 **Next chapter will be in Eclipse's POV. Also help me come up with names for Absol, Flygon, and Lucario. They seem to lack character when they don't have proper names.**

 **(Never mind it's fixed, but I don't erase my author's notes. By this I mean that I now have names for the three previously un-named pokemon)**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. If you read this chapter within the 24 hours of its release, I sincerely apologize. There was a ton of errors that made the story very confusing to follow. They have been fixed though, and I hope you enjoy reading!**


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

After a few minutes of talking, we sprang into action. Harpy shot to Norman's desk where the poke balls were scattered, then returned with them tucked into her scarf. The gym leader made no movement to stop her.

"What's happening? Where are you going?"

I walked up and tapped my blade against his arm to assure him that we knew what we were doing. Norman held out his hands.

"Hey, I'm not stopping you if you want to leave. I don't think I could if I even tried."

I quickly located my capsule along with everyone else.

"Come on!" Jaqueline shouted.

We blasted through the consecutive doors and found ourselves back at the entrance. I breathed in the fresh ash-free air. There were no clouds in the sky, which included the ones that sometimes came from the volcano to the east. I took a quick head count. I hoped that Patriot and Lenny were okay with Brendan.

"Where to now?" I asked.

"We start looking for Brendan of course!" Harpy said. She began to sniff the ground for a scent. After a full minute of us watching her at it, she stood back up.

"I conclude that he is dead and we should give up," she said.

Of course, none of us bought that. I shared a glance with Eclipse, who was trying not to laugh. How uncharacteristic of him. Never mind, now he looks upset for some reason...which was also unusual.

"Come on, let's get serious!" Jaqueline said. "You guys are making this harder than it needs to be. I can track auras. I know Brendan's scent from over a mile away. All we have to do is walk around until I can sense it."

"Genius!" I said.

"But where should we look first?" Eclipse wondered.

I walked up to the lucario.

"How much do you weigh?"

She turned to me with a wicked smile.

"Are you sure you want to ask that question?"

Even Harpy fell silent from her ranting to watch the fun begin.

"I...Uhhh. Sorry?" I really, really, _really_ hoped that today wasn't my last.

Jaqueline grinned.

"I'm kidding! You people just can't take a joke. I weigh about a hundred pounds. Why?"

"We could let you just skim the region on Harpy and hope for the best."

That seemed to make sense to her, thankfully. I could see the disappointment on Harpy's face. She wanted to see me get destroyed. Hopefully, that day would never come.

"I carry Brendan, and he's about a hundred-ten," Harpy said.

Eclipse stepped forward. I perked up. The only time he ever got close to us was when he had something really important to say.

"You know...Brendan is in serious trouble, and here we are joking around as if everything is okay with the world. But right now, everything is not okay. We owe more to Brendan than a light-hearted search party. Are you guys really that oblivious to what is really happening? This isn't a game. It's not a battle that we can just lose and shrug off."

And with that, he turned back into the serene pokemon we all knew and turned back around to face mount Chimney.

Harpy tilted her head towards the floor, as if she was taking a bow. I stared at the umbreon in shock. I was just about to think that the day couldn't get any stranger, but then Harpy had to ruin everything-again.

"He's right."

We all stared. Harpy stared back. I was crying internally, but absols never make their emotions _that_ easy to read.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" she snapped. "I'm never going to say that again. COME ON PEOPLE, LET'S MOVE!"

She took off without looking back.

"Wait!" Jaqueline called. "We need a plan!"

* * *

I followed Arvil out of the cell with May right behind me. I assured Alec that we were going to be fine, but we all knew that things could only go downhill from here. I considered our odds if we were to attack him. They looked good until we stepped into the hallway. There were people everywhere, wearing clothing similar to Arvil's. I figured that they all worked for him. I knew our odds just dropped below the floor.

 _We are so dead..._

May stayed close to me so she wasn't jostled by the stream of people going in the opposite direction. I noticed how bright and clean the floors and walls were, which led me to wonder what these people did in here. After a few minutes of dodging, I saw Arvil turn to face an archway. He motioned us through. The moment we cleared the threshold, we gasped. The bright flashes shooting across the room nearly blinded us.

"Oh my omastar..."

Arvil turned to us.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

* * *

 **Guess what guys? No spoilers for you until the next chapter is released! As usual, remember to comment on what you liked about the story so far and the issues you may find. You know the part that goes: "** I breathed in the fresh ash-free air." **? There is more than one meaning to this...**

 **Also, I realized that I promised that this chapter would be in Eclipse's POV. Whoops. Don't worry, all of "A New Life In Hoenn" is in his perspective.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

After a few minutes of dramatic exclamations (mostly Harpy's doing), we finally agreed on a somewhat solid plan.

I watched as Harpy and Jaqueline took flight. After reaching an altitude of about fifty feet, the raptor began veering back and forth, as if she was carrying a groudon.

 _Stupid bird,_ I thought.

From the ground, I could see Jaqueline point her right hand over the horizon in every direction.

"Sense anything?" I called up to them.

"No!" they shouted.

After a few minutes of veering about, they came back down with nothing.

"I think we should pack up and leave," Eclipse said.

I had to agree with that. We had no better option.

"Jackie, stay with Harpy. Keep searching for Brendan. We'll return to our poke balls," I offered.

No one else had a better idea, so we tapped our poke balls and were sucked back into our simulated habitats.

* * *

I picked up the encapsulated dark types, along with the empty poke balls. I handed them to Harpy, who then sealed them into a pocket in her scarf. I mounted her back, then took off into the fresh Hoenn sky.

We flew in silence for a while, dodging the occasional migrating bird formations.

"Hey, have you felt anything?" Harpy asked after a few more minutes.

I scanned Mount Chimney. I probed for Brendan's aura, but it was nowhere to be sensed. I looked back and scanned the area about Littleroot. Nothing.

"No," I said.

It was amazing to me how serious Harpy became the moment she was given her task to help me. At least she had some common sense on when it was an appropriate time to not goof off.

"Maybe we should fly lower," I suggested.

Harpy shook her head.

"That wouldn't be smart. Everyone would see us."

I had a genius thought. Simple, yet genius.

"Harpy. Fly low, but go at your very fastest."

She glanced back at me, a worried look on her face.

"You could fall off. My fastest speed could match a talonflame any day. You sure?"

I wanted to take my chances, and I was pretty sure that I could survive a thirty-foot drop.

"Just do it," I said.

Harpy made a sudden dip and plummeted closer to the ground. I held on for dear life as she tightened the loops. We shot off the last one at incredible speeds.

"JUST DO IT!" Harpy screamed.

This was one of those rare times when I wished that I wasn't a lucario. Harpy had created her own arial sling shot, and we were traveling (most likely) even faster than a talonflame with gale-tipped wings. Everything was a blur, and my screaming couldn't be heard because the sound was left behind us. Through the haze, I remembered that I had to be searching for Brendan. I scanned straight through the staraptor into the ground. I glanced up for a second to see how Harpy was doing. She didn't seem tired, because she was just gliding at unfathomable speeds without slowing. I sure hoped she was watching out for other things that could be occupying our airspace. Suddenly, I felt a pull.

"STOP!" I shouted.

Harpy didn't hear. That left me with no choice. I retracted the spikes on my hands and tapped her hard enough to notice. Harpy immediately put on the brakes; flapping her wings to cancel out the collected momentum.

"Where?" she cried out as we came to a steady hover.

I pointed back about a mile.

"I know he is somewhere over there. Somewhere near Mauville."

"You got it!"

She turned us back around and bumped into something solid. Somehow, a braviary had appeared out of nowhere. How in the world did I not sense him coming? Oh crap. This pokemon didn't look friendly either. I wouldn't be surprised if the red coloring on his body was actually blood.

"Hey, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" Harpy roared.

The braviary didn't look rattled at all.

"I take it you're the champion's battle pets?" he said.

I wasn't offended by his rude comment, just a _little_ upset. It was amazing to me how fast we could get into trouble, though I knew that I could kill this bird without breaking a sweat.

"Absolutely. So what's your problem?" I said quietly.

Oh, yes. I knew my angry voice was excellent-low and threatening. The bird could easily sense the skyrocketing tension pouring out of my mouth like a wave. I glanced down to see Harpy's surprisingly grim face. How long has it been since I've seen a miracle like that?

"You know, I saw your master get abducted. They shot a pointed stick with feathers attached to the end. They lowered a latter and hauled him and his friends into the flying thing," said the braviary.

"So, what's your point? Did you come just to tell us how he got abducted?"

"No, I just thought that you should know."

I breathed an internal sigh of relief. He wasn't here to challenge us. Meanwhile, Harpy breathed out very loudly. I knew she wasn't a freaking greninja about her emotions, but she seriously made everything way too obvious. The braviary laughed.

"Hey, I just don't like humans. They're selfish and heartless."

"To each their own," I said.

"Yeah, but I will help a pokemon. You two seem desperate."

"Well thanks. Remind me what you helped us with again?"

 _Thanks, Harpy,_ I thought.

"I'm just telling you what happened. I think you were in your prisons while all this was happening, right?" said the braviary.

"We knew that already," she said.

"It's all good though," I said hurriedly.

"Yeah, whatever. My name is Coreign. If you need any help from me, just call on any braviary. They all know who I am."

"So are you famous or something?" Harpy asked.

I rolled my eyes. Something bad could be happening to Brendan, and here we were-having tea in the sky.

 _"Come on,_ Harpy. No screwing around," I said.

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

 _Impressive._

"Maybe we'll see you again, but until then..."

"Yeah, hope you find your human-or whatever you call him," Coreign called back.

"Boy, he was fine!" Harpy cried out joyfully once we were a safe distance away from Coreign.

"Just give me a break Harpy."

We flew a normal pace at a good distance from the ground. A few minutes later, we were carefully gliding over Mauville city. I could feel our master's presence strengthen.

"I sure hope this doesn't end up like it did in Castelia," Harpy said.

I had to agree with her. In fact, the odds of us getting into trouble was even worse here. It was our home region, after all.

* * *

 **Remember to point out any speech oversights if you saw any. As always, comment on any grammar and/or spelling errors. I put in some changes to the helicopter abduction scene to make it even more interesting. Just so you all know. You may not see as many updates next week, because I'm getting Sun version for my birthday.**

 **I will finally be back up to date with the games. If the game was as good as ORAS, then I just might make a fan fiction on it! Or maybe I'll have the ORAS team go on an adventure in Alola. I would also like to throw in a thanks to JayJarvis who helped edit my mistakes for the past three chapters. Anyhow, I hoped you enjoyed the chapter!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. JUST DO IT**


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

"Don't worry, we won't hurt anyone as long as you two cooperate," the man in the lab coat said.

He had a few other masked scientists in the cell with him, taking notes on tablets. I exchanged a frightened glance with Lenny, who was losing scales in fright. No, he looked more like a soggy bag of sand.

"What should we do?" He asked.

I looked about for any means of escape. The bare room had no windows or air vents. There was a closed door in the farthest corner of the room, made of attack-proof steel. Even a machamp would have a hard time barreling through that.

"I have no clue," I said.

My super swellow hearing and sight combined didn't help us in our situation at all; there was just nothing to observe. Well, we were trapped in a force field of some sort, probably to keep me from wiping the floor with these peoples' blood. From what I could see, the field was generated the same way a pokemon would use protect.

 _How clever._

The researchers began talking, and I tuned in to see if there was anything of value to use against them.

"Look at that one," the person in front said, pointing at me. "See how feeble it looks? Yet, this computer reads its attack at over four-hundred."

The others looked at each other. I couldn't see their expressions due to their masks, but this seemed like a pretty big deal to them.

"For real?" one of the onlookers asked.

"Unless the meter is busted, yes."

There was a muttering from the small group. Lenny and I kept dead silent.

"This one could be very useful to us." The lead scientist rubbed his chin.

They were all staring at me in awe. I had to smile to myself. They were afraid of me, that was for sure. I looked at Lenny, who was struggling to remain conscious. He looked pretty frightened, in spite of being on one of the best pokemon teams in the world.

"Are you all right?" I whispered.

"F-fine," he stuttered.

"I'm going to try to break out. Want to try? According to them, my attack is over four-hundred, whatever that means."

"Oh, I don't know...what if they do something to us?"

I could tell that Lenny was almost inconsolable at this point, so I moved to my last resort immediately. We didn't have all day.

"Listen, if we don't break out, we'll be at their mercy anyways. Just trust me."

I looked into his eyes. Through the shades of his tinted goggles, I could see his eyes harden into determination.

"Please...for Brendan, right?"

He nodded in agreement. I nodded back, all the while keeping my eyes on the doctors outside the sphere.

"Just follow my lead...okay, use dragon claw in three...two...NOW!"

We simultaneously smashed into the side of the sphere. There was a bright flash of light, and we were thrown backwards, smacking into the opposite side of the enclosed bubble. I opened my eyes a second later to find ourselves at the bottom of the shield. It was still in perfectly working order. My feathers were singed, as if someone had put a flame to my feathers. Lenny also looked burned.

"WHAT IN THE DEVIL IS GOING ON!?" a nameless researcher yelled.

I glanced up in time to see all of the humans in the room getting back to their feet. We must have created a powerful shockwave. The confusion was dying down quick, and I wanted to have another go at the shield before we were punished or something. I glanced down at the poor flygon. He was struggling to stand, slipping in the floating sphere. I glanced back up at the people advancing on us. I saw one guy reach for his tablet. No questions! I gathered as much energy in my wings, packing in raw power. The pain was reaching me through my adrenaline. The burn must be really deep. The pain only seemed to add to my power and conviction, as I built up the strongest frustration attack against the shield. I slung forward in what little enclosed space I had, digging my beak into the searing shield.

CRACK!

The next thing I knew, we were free, shooting about the room at unfathomable speeds.

"W-what is going on?"

The people below were shouting and gasping. I didn't want to hang about to see what they would do.

"Come on!" I shouted.

He followed at a much slower pace, but even he was nearly invisible to the seven people below. My pain was unbearable, but that was only feeding my power. Without even thinking about it, I dove for the steel door.

"STOP!" Lenny screamed, but he was way too late.

I smashed through the door, leaving a boomerang-shaped hole in the steel. I just barely hung onto consciousness, and I just began to pummel everything that moved. There were screams and shouts, and the buzzing just got louder in my head. I turned towards the ceiling and shot heat waves down the hall, people running for their lives. The door swung open behind me. I turned-just in time to see a white beam strike me in the chest.

 _I tried..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _..._

 _ **Wake up, Patriot.**_

I looked up.

 _Oh my Arceus. This has to be a dream right?_

 _ **It is. But it isn't your dream. It's more like you are visiting mine. Listen very carefully. After all this is over, you need to speak to your umbreon friend.**_

 _Which one?_ I asked. I just wanted to test his knowledge a little bit.

 _ **The shiny one, you fool. Of course I know you are testing me, swellow. I know all. Believe me on this one. Just...ask Eclipse if he remembers anything about his life before he joined your team with Brendan.**_

The brief vision closed, leaving no visual details in my memory. Only the words remained.

* * *

 **Once again, I'm very sorry if you are confused with the chapter orders. I "switched" them around to match the true order of events in the story. You know, the one I'm making up on the spot.**

 **Hope you enjoyed, and remember to point out grammatical errors and/or plot loopholes.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

"Where should we land?" Harpy asked.

"I don't know," I said. "We should probably land a ways away from the city, though."

I pointed to the south of Mauville, where a river divided the region into two halves.

"Take us there."

Harpy broke into a lightning fast dive that would make even a ninjask jealous. We approached the forest west of the route, so we wouldn't be spotted when we landed. I held on to her feathers, and even pulled some of them out when she made a sudden decrease in speed. We plowed through the pine trees and hit the soft forest floor.

"OW!" Harpy yelled.

"Quiet!" I said once I had gotten off her back.

I took in our dark surroundings, then tested the saturated soil. It didn't take me long to get my bearings; I felt Brendan's aura pull at me.

"All right then. Mauville's that way." I aimed my paw northward.

"Oh good. Oh, and should we let the boys out?" Harpy asked.

I thought for a moment.

"Harpy, we need to stay as hidden as possible. I think you should return to your poke ball now. I can take it from here."

I could tell that she was upset, but thankfully, she agreed. She stood still while I unzipped the pocket in her scarf where we kept the poke balls. I held out Harpy's. She tapped the button-and was gone in a flash of white light. I picked up the scarf that she abandoned on the floor, and put Harpy's ball in with the others'. I wrapped the white sash across my waist, then started walking towards Mauville. I could see the light getting brighter as I reached the front of the pine forest. Through my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of...something moving behind me. I snapped around, expecting to see what it was. I thought I could see a streak of red shooting deeper into the trees.

 _Strange._

I emerged from the forest, and reached the small beach that bordered the wide river. There were several trainers with their pokemon lying about, sleeping in the burning heat. It wasn't hard to walk past them. Once I was a safe distance away, I booked it as far away from the beach as I possibly could. The fertile trees returned, along with the sweet-smelling grass. Unfortunately, I had no time to enjoy life. Brendan was in trouble. I continued sprinting as the large square of a building loomed even higher. Mauville was an indoor city, something unique that couldn't be found in any other region. Thankfully, there was nothing unique about me physically to arouse suspicion that I was the champion's lucario.

 _As long as I play it cool, I'll be fine._

I began to see people walking down the route in the opposite direction. Not one of them took a second glance at me.

 _Thank Arceus._

I walked through a modern glass archway, and found myself in Hoenn's largest city. There were people everywhere! It didn't feel as packed as Castelia, but it was still pretty bad. I looked down the mall-sized hallways in awe. I remembered that Brendan once took our team here-back when I was still a riolu. Since then, the city was torn down and remodeled in a more modern metropolis swarming with people and pokemon.

I could feel our master's aura strengthen, but something was off. I raced about the hallway, looking for stairs. I avoided smashing into anyone, which could result in a gruesome death with a spike through the stomach. After a few minutes of scouring the area, I concluded that there was nothing there. I gave up on the hallway and moved on to the next one. Still no stairs. After ten full minutes, I concluded that there was no possible way to descend to the next level. There was one thing that I was certain about, though. Brendan was underground.

* * *

The bright lights nearly blinded me as pokemon of almost every kind of species dueled it out. I saw a hitmochan deck it out with a blaziken, using feints and hooks, trying to get the other to submit. Almost every single eeveelution was present, different colored attacks shooting across the room in overwhelming flashes. The almost endless space in the room made me dizzy from all the action. I ducked as a noctowl shot right where I was just a moment before.

"Whoa!"

Suddenly, May grabbed my arm and pointed about thirty feet up to the ceiling.

"LOOK!"

My jaw dropped. There was a pokemon hovering in one of the corners, glowing a dark purple. I had never seen anything like it before, and that almost never happened these days. I was the champion, after all. The large bat-like creature pulsed out in bright white flashes at anything that tried to attack it. Arvil turned back to us.

"So, you see it! That is Lunala, the legendary pokemon of the moon. Impressive, yes?"

I turned to him in wonder and confusion.

"What are all these pokemon doing here?"

Arvil smiled.

"You see, we keep these pokemon here to train. Once they are measured to meet a certain standard or strength, they go to my employees, who use them to help our company in its operations."

"How do you get them to fight each other?" May asked.

"It's actually quite simple. If a pokemon refuses to fight, then we threaten to kill it. You see, most pokemon would prefer to live, and battles aren't all that cruel in the first place."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"You actually kill them if they don't fight?"

"We tell them that, but we wouldn't really kill them. Think of it this way: If I was to point a gun at you, you would still give me all of your money, without even considering that it wasn't even loaded. To you, the risk would be too great."

I could barely hear him over the sounds of battle, but I got the message very clear. This man abused pokemon. May saw the fire ignite in my eyes as I turned back to her. She got the message, but shook her head in warning. Arvil noticed something too. He stepped back, snapping his fingers. Immediately, two guards wearing sashes stepped in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Don't you even think of attacking me," Arvil said. "These guards were once part of the shadow triad, once employed by the fool Ghetsis. Trust me, you don't want them as your enemies."

I could only stare at the guards in shock. I was pretty sure that they had just used teleport. Upon further inspection, I realized that these ninjas were the same guys at the cafe in Castelia city.

 _Holy crap. So that's how they found us. Alec was right. We can't ever be too careful._

I already couldn't bare to think about Arvil anymore. He was a monster, and I wondered how he got into power in the first place. I glanced back over the fighting, and saw a mightyena staggering into one of the corners of the room, critically injured. I noticed a jolteon shooting back and forth, firing off lightning at a streak of blue and red. I guessed that it was a swellow, and was confirmed a second later when the streak stopped in front of me in the air.

"PATRIOT!"

* * *

 **Oh my heck. I have NO IDEA what's going to happen next. I'm just writing whatever comes to my head. Comments would be lovely, though. Also, should our characters pay a visit to Alola later in the book, to bring Lunala back home? Should Lucario find a way underground, or she could ask a friendly excadrill to dig all the way down for her? Planning to bring Coreign back for sure, but not anytime for the next few chapters.**

 **OH, AND I JUST REMEMBERED! In the real world, the Hoenn region is the south-most part of Japan. And get this-what we see as north in the games is actually facing east in real life! So that's why the directions mentioned in the chapter may be a little confusing.**

 **Spoiler alert: The natural entrance underground isn't in Mauville...**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. Is my writing dragging too much, or is it moving way too fast? I have no idea how good attention spans are these days.**


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

I took a quick look at my swellow. He had singed feathers in some places, and had a fierce glare in his eyes. Even in battle, he was always calm and collected, but currently had a mask of rage plastered to his face.

 _The burn must be giving him this adrenaline. This could help us get the crap out of here._

"Oh man, I'm so glad you're alright!" I exclaimed.

Patriot turned back to me with a softer face than just a moment before.

"Caw!"

"Don't worry about me," I laughed, even though we had quite the situation on our hands.

Then, I saw his quick smile of assurance melt into a furrow of concern.

"What is it?"

He cried out and pointed his left talon towards the door.

 _Right. It's time to go._

I ducked down as the jolteon from earlier did an amazing cat jump, which covered at least ten feet in a single bound. The swellow saw it coming and put up a protect.

"I take it you want to leave?" Arvil said.

"Of course I do! Also, hate to break it to you, but your so-called belief in good morals is nothing but a lie."

I closed my eyes. I _was_ in his power, after all. Unfortunately, his voice returned quietly. He didn't sound angry at all, which made it even harder to confirm what he even was. A standard evil person who wanted to take over the world? A money-grabbing political leader? It has crossed my mind before, but I've never really looked into who ran the regions behind the curtain. No one has ever really questioned it. Even Mauville T.V. never mentioned anything of the sort.

"You can't insult me, child. You may be the Pokemon League champion, but your strength only lies on the battlefield. When it comes to more important matters like money or trade, you are clueless."

When I opened my eyes again, the screeching and wailing of the pokemon behind me grew in intensity. I turned back to see a horde of them running directly at Arvil, claws and teeth gleaming. Even the cornered legendary from earlier descended, a white lazer-like beam of light forming from multiple emitters on its wingtips. I took Patriot's claws and soared out of there as fast as Arceus would allow. I turned back just in time to see the collision.

* * *

I dropped Brendan off in a corner of the room, then twisted back around midair to see.

 _Holy crap._

Arvil surrounded himself with a protective field-much like the one that held us. I glanced up to see Lenny getting out of the stampede, careening in many directions before he hit the floor in exhaustion. Of course, Brendan couldn't see the field, because the protective technique was invisible to human eyes. The horde of pokemon advanced and hit the field within five seconds of us clearing the floor.

WHAM!

I shielded my eyes as the flurry of physical and special attacks attempted to penetrate the field. There was a bright flash of light and everything was cleared away, Arvil still standing there with an infuriatingly calm look on his face. Screeches and wails of pain could be heard from the pokemon that made direct contact, fists and teeth charred. I cringed.

"What happened?" Brendan yelled.

Suddenly a feeling of dread came over me. We were missing someone.

"MAY!"

Brendan ran back to the crowd of enraged pokemon, searching for her. Lenny and I followed.

* * *

I felt a tug from underneath the floor. That couldn't be good. Brendan's aura was now shifting below, as if he was running.

 _He could be in trouble, and here I am-just sitting on these stone steps like everything is okay._

The passersby humans paid me no notice, but there were a few curious pokemon. A furfrou stopped, in spite of the leash that was tugging at him.

"Hey."

I looked up, using my eyes instead of aura to take in details. The pokemon had a sharp-cut tail and even a sharply cut length of hair on his head. He looked like he was cosplaying an absol.

"Hello," I said dully.

"Come on Peanut!" the girl pulling the leash said impatiently.

He blushed when I heard his nickname.

"Uh, can I help you?" I said quizzically.

"Just wondering if anything is bothering you," he said.

"Well, you can't help me," I said.

 _Stop being so rude. He's just trying to help._

"I don't know, maybe I can," he retorted.

"Come _on!_ " the trainer said.

"All right. Would you happen to know a way underneath the city? My trainer is down there."

The furfrou's ears dropped. I knew he would be useless.

"I didn't even know that there was an underground," he said.

"Do you know anyone who might know?" I asked.

"Well, I remembered seeing an excadrill at the day care center."

I was getting hopeful. Excadrills were always the pokemon to turn to for digging and construction. Their steel-hard claws could sift through dirt and concrete like it was made of butter.

"Thank you," I said.

The furfrou's trainer looked at me with a frown.

"Is it alright?" she asked Peanut.

"Woof!"

"Okay, let's go then." She walked off, and Peanut didn't resist.

"Thank you!" I called after him.

Finally filled with hope, I got off the steps that led to the second level of the city. It was a good thing that I knew how to read. I remembered seeing a sign on the northern side of the city that pointed to my next destination.

* * *

 **Oh boi. Sorry for the wait, guys. So I will give you the next chapter in a couple of days. Please leave feedback! To be honest, it's really hard to write when there aren't many reviews.**

 **On a lighter note, I turned 16 a couple days ago, so happy birthday to me!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. As customary, remember to point out any plot loopholes or grammar errors if you see any!**


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

I decided to run to the day care, because I was kinda on a tight schedule. I tried my very hardest not not mow anyone over, because metal moving at high speeds _could_ get a little dangerous. I exited on the north side, and the sun nearly blinded me when I took in the brilliance of the route. Wow, it was beautiful. There were fresh emerald trees scattered on both sides of the path, and a fence that separated the route into two lanes of traffic. The best part about it was that the center was already in sight.

"Yes!" I shouted.

A man sitting beneath one of the trees looked up. I could see a dizziness in his eyes. He must've just woken up. I didn't pay him a second glance, though. I walked up to the small building. A man was guarding a break in the fence that encircled everything behind the house. I walked up to him, who was watching me curiously.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

Sometimes I really hated that I couldn't communicate to humans directly, so I always had to resort to some kind of sign language. I barked, and pointed to the playground behind him. He nodded in understanding, and stepped away from the opening carelessly.

 _Sweet._

I walked past him all nonchalant. The yard was pretty big and cool looking. Despite being right next to Hoenn's largest city, it seemed calm and isolated, which was a good thing considering that this was a day care. On top of that, the yard was big enough to have a small pond, a rocky terrain area, a shady area, and a commons area in the very center. There was a fair amount of pokemon walking and flying about, but it wasn't like anyone was bumping into each other. I assumed that the excadrills lived in the rocky area, so I began heading in that direction.

"Hey there!" an exotic large-beaked pokemon called from above.

"Hello!"

It was nice to see how friendly they all were to me. Almost ten more pokemon stopped me on my way to the jagged area, and I would have stopped to chat. But I had a feeling that time was running short for our master. I finally made it to the small mountains, and there were several sandshrews half-asleep on one of the rock shelves. I weighed my options, and finally decided to wake one of them. I reached out with a paw and tapped one on the head. He shot off the stone like he was hit with a bolt of lightning (Which would make no sense, seeing that he was a ground type). I jumped back while holding my arms in front of my face. Once the dust settled, he looked at me dully.

"What do you want?"

"I-I'm just wondering if you've seen any excadrills around here." I said, cringing at my stutter.

He looked a bit calmer once he heard my crackup. I faintly remembered that sandshrews become more friendly once other pokemon have shown their submission. I didn't like that I came off that way, but it really wasn't that important.

"Yeah, I've seen them. Those poor fools are probably having another Arceus-forbidden debate somewhere around here. I would check on the other side of this mountain."

"What are their names?" I asked.

The sandslash frowned.

"Brynner and Addisen. But don't expect them to be useful if you have a question for them. They think they are so smart with their big words."

I thanked him for his help.

"It's no problem. Next time, try to find someone who isn't trying to sleep, _okay?_ "

"Yeah, thanks," I said.

I was glad that I wouldn't have to speak with that sarcastic sandshrew again, even though he was kind of helpful. I proceded to walk around the base of the acre-wide mountain. There were a ton of shelves in it, each holding different species and families of pokemon. It was fairly loud, since the sandshrews were the only ones sleeping at least for several acres. I passed a family of lucarios, who watched me curiously.

"Hello!" a riolu called out.

I looked back with a smile.

"Hi."

The child was about to say something else, but then a large lucario put its hand over his mouth.

"Hush. She looks too busy to play right now."

"It's fine," I said. "Maybe I could come over another time."

I walked on, more energized after seeing some of my own kind.

 _I have to hurry and find these excadrills. Brendan trusts us to find him, and I can't get distracted now. Maybe...he would let me live here for a while once this is all over. Maybe even start a family..._

"NO! YOU SHUT UP! I already told you why the highest point of an object is the top!"

"Don't give me that. And that has to be the second time you interrupted me. I was saying that when you look in the dictionary, you would find-"

"-COME ON! Bulbapedia doesn't count! Anybody can just come in and edit the information whenever they wanted! Seriously, I could just change a page about Zapdos to say: 'I liek mudkipz'!"

"Think rationally. And that has to be the fifth time you interrupted me. I don't even refer to Bulbapedia for my facts."

 _Oh boy. This has to be them. Arceus save us all._

* * *

 **PatrioticSwellow here. Man, it's been a while since I last submitted a chapter. I was kinda busy playing Pokemon Sun. Kukui was absol utely amazing. (PRETEND I DIDN'T SAY THAT.)** **Also, just note that all legendary pokemon will be proper nouns, because there is only one of each legendary. I hope you all continue reading, and you will find out what the excadrills are all about next chapter. Once again, this will be in Lucario's point of view.**

 **AND PLEASE SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME NAMES FOR THESE POKEMON! Absol, Flygon, and Lucario need some love here. I may be decent at writing, but for some reason I just suck at names. As customary, tell me if you see any writing errors anywhere in this chapter (or any other). Also, I am going to scrub all the chapters up to this point to check capitalization errors, because this also seems to be a big problem for me.**

 **UPDATE: All of the characters in this story now have names. I'm very sorry for the long wait.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

I kept on walking until I finally saw the source of the blasting sound. Once they were in view, it intensified until my metallic skull rattled.

"Actually, it was my third time interrupting you," the slightly larger excadrill said. "Learn how to count."

"Okay...but can we settle this later? I see someone down there." She pointed at me.

"This isn't over, you nincompoop," the male exadrill said, twitching his claws like a mega evolved pair of scissors.

"Says the talking ding-dong."

"Says the idiot who can't even tell the difference between a muk and your face."

"Says the twit who can't even do math."

"In my defense, I have other strengths amplified in other areas, so it all balances out."

I coughed.

"Could you please remind me?" she said, glancing at my befuddled expression.

"HOW DARE YOU!"

"PLEASE REMIND ME!"

"I CAN WRITE FANFICTION, THAT HAS TO COUNT FOR SOMETHING!"

"Well..."

I laughed hard, placing a paw on my stomach and kneeling down.

He turned to me.

"Can I _help_ you?"

The threat was so obvious that I could've felt his aura from Kalos.

"Yes," I said. "Would you happen to know a way underneath Mauville city?"

The two froze on the rocky platform. They shot dark glances at each other, then turned back to me, holding up their claws.

"I swear that I don't know _anything._ " the female excadrill said, forcing out a small laugh.

"HA! So you admit that you are stupid!" the other laughed.

If I wasn't so good with liars, I would've fallen for their little act. But, unfortunately for them, I was a master of auras.

"You know where the entrance is."

It wasn't a question. I was completely sure of it.

They sighed, and put their claws down.

"My name is Addisen," the smaller excadrill said. "This is Brynner."

"Nice to meet you," he said.

"That's great and all, but my master is in trouble. I know you know where the entrance is, because you keep on avoiding my question."

"I'm sorry, but we can't let you pass," Brynner said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because. Go find another way in if you can."

I held up my paws into a fighting stance.

"Can't you just _dig_ me a new way in?"

Addisen sighed.

"Listen, we're being paid to guard this mountain. How many pokemon do you know with an actual job?"

It did sound like a good deal for them. But what could they possibly use money for?

"Why would you need money?" I questioned.

"Because, they buy us whatever we want," Addisen said. "Since pokemon can't walk into shops, they just get a human to get it for us."

"You know, it might be better if we just show you," Brynner said.

"No!" Addisen said.

"It'll be fine," Brynner said. "We can take her on if she doesn't cooperate."

"Wait! Who's 'they'?" I asked.

They shook their heads.

"I really don't care," Addisen said.

"Well, you should."

She sighed. Brynner walked to the opposite side of the summit, and smacked a claw onto a strange colored rock. I climbed to the top where they were. Suddenly, a hole appeared in the rock, widening to reveal a ramp.

"Come on."

I was shocked, but unexpected stuff like this never froze me for more than a few seconds.

"Cool," I said.

I followed them. The tunnel wasn't very long, and it opened up to reveal the most glittered room I have ever seen. There were even glass skylights to let sunlight in. There was a yellow line of packing tape dividing the room into two territories.

"This is amazing!" I exclaimed as a faint image of Brendan in pain suddenly entering my mind.

"Exactly. I even write to all my fans!" Brynner said, walking through the messier side of the room. I followed him to his pc.

 _This is insanity. An excadrill owning a laptop? It better be scratch resistant._

"Huh..."

I figured that he only brought me down here to boast about his wealth. Why else would he let a stranger into his room?

"So, if you fail to guard the entrance, the humans will take this stuff from you?" I asked.

"I told you it was a bad idea," Addisen moaned.

"Quiet. If she won't cooperate with us, then we'll defend ourselves," Brynner said as he held his long serrated claws in front of my face.

I sensed uneasy auras about them. The fact that their glares didn't faze me must be scaring them.

I looked about the room.

"The entrance is in here."

Their eyes widened.

"AARRRGGHHH!" Brynner screamed, bringing his right claw down where my head was just a moment before.

I stepped back into a fighting stance. The thought of Brendan being so close increased my agility. I wasn't about to let these clowns slow me down.

* * *

 **I'm sorry that I can't write chapters as much as I should be. School always seems to be getting in the way of my success. Before I continue onto the next chapter, I'm going to replace Flygon Absol and Lucario with real names. Just check frequently and you will see the updates. This will take a while, and I hate doing boring things. Writing chapters are okay, but scrubbing for errors is a no-no. For my constantly faithful readers (I know you're out there), I would just like to give my thanks. I hope that I will eventually be able to finish my first fan fiction project strong.**

 **UPDATE: They have names now.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	20. Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

They came at me, devilish looks on their faces with their claws extended. I had psychic moves at my disposal, but they wouldn't do too great against them. I was also afraid that I could kill them with my aura sphere, even if everyone had higher survival rates these days. I attempted my first false swipe at Brynner. It landed, but it didn't even weaken him. It just made him even more mad.

"I told you we shouldn't have let her in!" Addisen wailed.

"Quit whining and fight!" Brynner shouted back.

"Like this?"

And with that, Addisen rotated her claws until they blurred in my vision. She charged, with Brynner frozen in shock. I side-stepped at the right moment, and launched a psychic at her. But she wasn't even there.

"Wha-" I started.

"-WHY?!" Brynner wailed. "Do you have any idea how long it's gonna take to fix that?"

I looked to where he was staring. There was a narrow hole drilled into the ground.

"This better be good," Brynner muttered.

I was getting sick of the fight. I knew they couldn't win this, but they were excellent stallers. I guess I have to take the risk. Brynner finally absorbed everything that was happening, and finally realized that he was supposed to be attacking me. The ground trembled beneath my feet, and I sidestepped once again. I used this propulsion to send myself into a powerful dropkick that landed bullseye in his stomach. It was like I had just hit a cracked brick.

"Oof!"

His eyes widened like saucers, and he fell next to his PC, moaning.

"What the heck was that?"

I looked back to see an angry (Maybe a little bit of an understatement) excadrill vaulting through the air. A split-second later, she connected, blowing me backwards into her brother's desk. My weight combined with the speed completely obliterated it, followed by a succession of snapping sounds.

"AAAAHHRRR!"

Instantly, the two were on me, slashing at everything they could reach. There were sharp clangs of metal on metal, and I was gaining scratches that would fade off in a year. I really had no other choice. I closed my eyes and fired off an aura sphere. The force drove me even further into the wall, while the two were instantly knocked unconsious. I stood up, and the pain finally reached me.

"Ow."

I checked the damage, and saw a sharp scrape on my left leg. It hurt, and silver blood was leaking out. Then, I walked over to the other side of the room where the knocked out excadrills were laying. Amazingly enough, they didn't look too bad. They must have been pretty well trained. Anyhow, I knew that I could take them. There was no need to get Harpy involved...Well, might as well let them out now. I lifted the scarf and put it onto one of the surviving desks. I unzipped the compartment and pulled out the capsules. They appeared in a firework show of bright flashes. I laughed when I saw the absol sleeping lazily on the stone floor. Harpy was the only one awake, apparently.

"What is it this time?" she asked in that calm voice that I was still unaccustomed to.

"And what is your deal?" I wondered.

"What?"

"Never mind. Do me a favor and wake the other two."  
 _You idiot._

A smile returned to her face.

"Will do."

She had to pick on the umbreon first, obviously. I had seen her reading this story (yes, she reads) about an umbreon that had to go through the terrors of high school. I was never interested in reading, but I've seen that book several times on the floor and once on the shelf. Brendan was never too clean with his room. I leaned over Harpy's shoulder once, just to see what was happening. After a few paragraphs of it, I was already shaking with laughter alongside her. I could see why she was reading it. Of course, everyone else also had to come see what the ruckus was about. Brendan was perplexed as usual.

And, _oh,_ Eclipse's reaction to the dust cover picture was hysterical. It was a picture of an adorable-looking umbreon in the middle of a school hallway. A glaceon was peering around the corner at the end of it. Eventually, I read it...then Eclipse read it. Ever since then, he always cringed whenever Glade made a sudden unexpected appearance. I didn't think that there was anything cowardly about it, though. It felt pretty real while reading. Even though that pokemon could never hope to go to a high school. That right was reserved to humans only.

Anyways, Harpy was creeping up on the drowsing umbreon with a huge grin on her face. The funny thing was, Eclipse was the one to teach the rest of us how to read, and I had no idea how he knew. It was one of those rare things he bothered to talk to us about.

 _Three...two...one..._

WHACK!

"AAAHHHH!"

I fell to the floor, the wind knocked out of my stomach. The umbreon's shout then woke Glade, who jumped up, eyes alert.

"WHAT THE DEVIL IS GOING ON HERE?"

"Nothing!" Harpy returned, "what's your problem?"

"I'm trying to figure the same thing out!"

"GUYS! COME _ON!_ I found where Brendan is!" I shouted.

Everyone silenced almost instantly. Eclipse nodded towards me in appreciation.

"Where?" Glade asked.

I looked about the destroyed room.

"I'll fill you in with the details later, but Brendan is underneath Mauville city."

"Like underground?" Eclipse asked.

"Yeah. These excadrills-" I pointed to their limp forms, "-were protecting the entrance. I'm not quite sure where it is exactly, but I know that it's here in this room."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's find it." Harpy said while doing her signature loops through the vast room.

I rolled my eyes. "What she said."

We got to work, moving boxes and clearing away the debris. Eclipse tried his hardest, but he didn't really accomplish anything for the first three minutes. I went back to the desk to fetch the scarf.

"Harpy."

"What?" she groaned, who was currently moving an entire desk by herself.

She looked over at my outstretched hand.

"Oh!" she said, then dropped the table. Eclipse was directly underneath.

"What in the he-"

Crunch.

We were all silent for a moment, staring at the mahogany platform. Glade and I rushed forward. Meanwhile, Harpy flew across the room and out the door.

"Well, might as well call suicide hotline..."

"No...oh no..." Glade muttered.

We lifted the table to reveal...a perfectly intact umbreon. He lifted his head in confusion.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

We just stared at him.

"Oh well. Thanks for pulling that off of me. It was starting to hurt."

He walked off towards the food barrels located in a corner of the room.

"Better go see what Harpy is up to," Glade muttered as he walked towards the exit.

I followed.

* * *

 **Wow, that was a fun one to write. Yes, I went on ahead and mentioned one of my favorite fanfictions that I have read on this site. Just a little easter egg for "That Glaceon" fans. So, I have a clearer view of how the story is going to wrap up. Finally! Arvil will soon "reveal" his true motives...and no, I haven't forgotten about that blood-red streak that Jaqueline saw in the woods by Mauville city. Remember to rate and review, and I'll see you all next time!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21

Fortunately, we found her pretty quickly. She was miming a meteor smashing into the earth over and over again. There were even more holes in the mountain and some scattered about the entire backyard.

"Hey!"

She stopped destroying things and looked over.

"Can I help you?"

"Umm, yeah, could you stop destroying stuff? I see the day care man right there," Glade said.

I looked over. Sure enough, he was almost to the small mountain, carrying some kind of staff. Harpy's eyes cleared.

"Time to go?" she asked.

"Definitely," I said. I was just glad that she didn't kill herself.

We walked back into Brynner and Addisen's dwelling. We found Eclipse standing at attention by the threshold.

"I found a door," he said.

"Glad you're okay," Harpy said. "And really, I didn't mean to drop a table on you."

"It's fine," he said.

"Well, I knew you were going to be fine, being an umbreon and all, but...yeah."

"So where's the door?" I asked.

Eclipse went to the back of the room. He did a cat jump onto one of the randomly scattered desks, and used a claw (He had claws?) to open the lid of one of the barrels. Harpy took to the air to see. I leaned over. Sure enough, that barrel had no visible bottom. Harpy backed away in mock fear.

"Well, gotta run."

"Come back!" I shouted.

She returned with a sly grin on her face.

"Fine. Here goes nothing." She tucked her wings in and slid through the small space. "For Brendan!"

We were whipped back by the fierce winds she caused. Eclipse literally flew to the other side of the room. After a minute of silence, Glade called down.

"Hello?"

"I am still falling!" an echo answered back.

I understood the reference. There was a myth in the Alola region about this female primerina who traveled across the sea to restore some kind of leaf stone on a dead island. There was a catchphrase in the story that became a meme among pokemon. Of course, Harpy had to catch onto every single trend that came her way.

"Ha ha." Glade replied. "Where are you _actually?_ "

"Yeah. I'm in some kind of room with white walls and...wait a minute!"

We jumped.

"Umm, I don't really know how to say this, but the door has a swellow imprint in it." Harpy announced.

Eclipse put a paw to his mouth.

"L-like Patriot?" he asked.

"Yeah, kinda like that," she said. "Well, more like a cutout of Patriot. Just come on down!"

Of course, Glade looked a bit uncertain.

"How far down is it really?" he asked.

"Don't worry, it's more like a slide."

"I'll take your word for it," Eclipse said quietly. He jumped.

Just ten seconds later, he called back.

"Harpy you-"

"WHAT? I SWEAR I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"

"Are you _serious?"_ I groaned.

"Yep," Glade replied.

I jumped next. I heard an upset voice above that I recognized. The day care man. I looked up just in time to see Glade jump. That couldn't be good at all. Just seconds later, I smacked right into Eclipse. Yes, he stopped me from flying across the room, but now Glade just barreled right into my back. He cried out in pain.

"Wow, Jaqueline," Harpy laughed. "You knocked 'em out. A one hit K.O!"

"Quiet," I said. I looked over to see the umbreon completely unconsious. Thankfully, the spike on my chest missed his abdomen by a foot.

"What was that?" Glade moaned.

"What was what?" I asked.

"Hmm?" Harpy asked with an obviously fake look of concern.

"The last thing Eclipse said. What was that about?"

"But I thought that you had aura powers or something?"

"Give me a break. What actually happened?"

"Well, I thought that it would be funny if I, you know, pretended to be Abby for a second."

I laughed. Another reference. Our own absol got up, trembling.

"Why?" he laughed, while cringing. He lifted his left leg, which was covered in blood.

"COME HERE JULLEY!" Harpy sang at the top of her voice.

"J-just please shut up," Eclipse said.

 _Wait a minute, he was just knocked out just half a minute ago. He is even tougher than I thought. Even after the table incident, I didn't really think he would recover from a heavy piece of metal barreling into him._

"Down to business," I said.

Everyone calmed down.

"Can I go into my ball?" Glade asked. "I'm afraid I'm just going to slow you down."

"Harpy?" I said.

She walked over and leant me her scarf. I pulled out a luxury ball.

"In you go." I reached out my hand and the absol was sucked in.

Eclipse made sure that he was in working order, then walked over to me.

"I think we should all go inside our poke balls," he said, "but not Harpy. If she really cares about Brendan, then she'll take us to him without getting caught by whatever or whoever is outside that door."

"Of course I care about him!" she said indignantly.

"All right," I said. "We're probably trusting you with our lives. No pressure, but don't screw up."

She smiled back at me. A real smile, not the mischievous kind.

"I won't."

I put the scarf around her neck, and tapped on my little dwelling. The last thing I saw was Eclipse and Harpy watching me disappear. The determined looks on their faces were pretty comforting, so I just sat down on my quilted platform, and prepared myself for the inevitable.

* * *

I watched as Eclipse disappeared from view. Sweet! Now it was just me and my entertaining thoughts! I zipped up the scarf, and tightened it. I didn't need it falling off at an unexpected and unfortunate time. I looked back at the tunnel which led to the excadrills' cavern. As I watched, the wall closed up, almost like magic.

 _Wonderful! That was our only known way out!_

I gulped and glided over to the door that was less than twenty feet away. Yep, for some reason, I knew that Patriot must've somehow gotten through the half-foot of steel. I hovered lower and tried to turn the door handle. It didn't budge. It looked like my only option was to try to do what Patriot did. On the other hand, blowing through the door would result in a lot of noise, and I didn't want to draw any attention. Surprisingly enough. I glanced about the room. Nothing useful. Then, I had a flash of inspiration. I quickly whipped out Eclipse's quick ball and tapped the white button at the center. He emerged, looking about with wide eyes. Then he saw me. His ears lowered in submission to my all-powerful might.

"What is it? Did we forget to talk about something?"

"Actually, we did. How in the world am I supposed to get through this door without alerting the entire region?"

"You tried the door handle, right?" he asked meekly.

I rolled my eyes.

"Of course I did. But I already have the solution. I want you to go through the hole." I pointed to the swellow cut-out.

"But how am I-"

"-I'll get you up there. Don't worry about it. I'll give you the scarf, then you'll return me to my poke ball right before you climb through."

* * *

I ran up to May's side once the wounded pokemon backed off. Arvil looked on with a small smile crossing his face. I could see it through the corner of my eye. May did not look good at all. Luckily enough, people were like pokemon when it came to survival rates. The hospitals were very advanced and I knew that she would be fine. Her eyes opened, but they closed again when blood began to seep into them. I put my hand on her face and brushed her hair out of the way.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

Clearly, she wasn't, but I just wanted to be polite.

"I'm fine," she whispered back.

"Patriot, get her out of the way!" I ordered.

He cried out, and somehow lifted her five-and-a-half foot frame out of the way.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" I shouted.

Arvil folded his arms and grinned. Yep, I concluded for the fifth time that he was crazy. There was nothing deep or important that he wanted to tell me. One could never consult with someone who was just plain evil.

* * *

 **Alright guys. This is my halfway point for the story. Ready for part 2? Because I am. Before I move on, I have to convert all of the numbers into a word format. Gotta keep it professional, you know? Sawss, if you ever read this, just know that I am pro "That Sylveon". Good luck with your second story!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	22. Chapter 22

_**PART 2**_

CHAPTER 22

"A-alright. Time to try out the plan," Eclipse said.

"Just you remember that it was my idea all along," I said happily.

"Right," Eclipse muttered, who was staring at the floor.

I snatched up the unsuspecting umbreon and easily lifted him to the cutout in the door.

"Can you let go now?" Eclipse asked.

"I don't know, can I?" I teased.

"..."

"Fine. You don't have to be like Red around me, okay?"

I let go, and draped my scarf over his head. I landed right in front of the door, looking up at Eclipse's backside.

"Wonderful view," I commented.

"..."

"Whatever. Just get the scarf and let me in."

The umbreon used his teeth to open the compartment and searched out my poke ball.

"Now move it south and grab it with your back paws."

"How am I supposed to do that?" he said at last.

"Just...squirm it down or whatever," I said, wondering how I could have rephrased it any better.

He sighed and tilted his head down so that the ball was on my side of the doorway.

"Hold it there," I said, flying up to tap the button on the ball. I was sucked in, and that was that.

* * *

It was all up to me now. I peered down the hallway, which was probably white at one point, but burned up by some kind of fire attack. I was grateful to whoever did it, or else I probably would have already been discovered by the many workers who now crowded through. I tried my hardest to keep my ring patterns from glowing. I realized that the scarf would be such a plain contrast to the soot, so I would have to do something about that. I popped out of the hole in the door and dropped to the floor. I immediately rolled around in the dark mess, until I was completely camouflaged.

 _Now what?_

 _ **Follow my lead.**_

I jumped at least a foot in shock. I was positive that those weren't my thoughts, because I recognized that voice from a few years back. Back when I first became an umbreon.

 _You!_ I shouted in my head.

 _ **Yeah, it's just me. Listen, if you do not follow my instructions exactly, things could get really bad around here.**_

I grew instantly wary.

 _Alright. You know all, I guess._

I pressed my side against the wall to avoid getting stepped on.

 _ **In a few seconds, the hall will be filled with braviaries. That's when you need to hitch a ride on one of them. They will take you to Brendan and the others.**_

I felt some relief, and for the first time, gladness that Arceus was caring enough to take me away from the life I once had. The hell I once had.

 _You got it._

 _ **Good. It's actually against the law for me to make direct contact with any mortal, but it can be bent just a little.**_

 _Huh? Don't you make the laws?_

 _ **No, I don't make the law** **s, but d** **on't worry about it. In fact**_ _ **, you should be paying attention to your own surroundings.**_

I looked up just in time to see a foot crashing down. I tried to jump out of the way, but I brushed the person's foot a little. He bent down to see what it was.

 _Holy crap. What do I do?_

No directions came. The hand grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me up to meet his face.

"Well, lookie here!"

I twitched my paw, and slashed as hard as I possibly could. He yelled out in pain, which drew every eye to the disturbance. To me.

A few seconds of surprised shock.

"Get the umbreon!" a female voice in the back ordered.

The uniformed researchers reached out and quickly disabled me. I couldn't fight. I couldn't do anything.

 _WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO THIS TO ME?!_ I screamed internally.

 _ **It's not like I can see the future! Even the lord of pokemon doesn't know everything!**_

 _Well, aren't you an amazing ruler! Don't you have Dialga to help you with that?_

 ** _He's in flippin' Florida! It's not like I have control over him!_**

 _Florida. Well, even with my poor memories of my old life, I vaguely remember. Florida's a state. A place. Not that I lived there or anything like that..._

 _ **Ya done?**_

I was roughly carried over to the waiting woman dressed in a unique purple uniform.

"What should we do with it?" the man holding me asked.

"Give it to me," she said with authority.

"Yes admin."

 _Oh no._

 ** _Oh yes._**

 _And WHY are you so happy all of the sudden?_

 _ **The braviaries. They're here.**_

* * *

I decided to follow the lucario and staraptor, because I was curious. I was confident that they wouldn't detect me though, because my aura power shielded me from the lucario's radar. Just another boring day in the life of the king of braviaries. After a minute of following, the staraptor dove into the forest next to Mauville city. I followed.

The pine trees provided a lot of good shade, and I realized that this would be another perfect place for my legions to roost. I listened to the staraptor complaining about something. After a little more small talk, the lucario walked off, with no sign of the staraptor's aura. I tried to follow as stealthily as I could, but my wing caught on one of the jutting branches. She whipped around, but my quick reflexes ensured that I got out of there beyond detection.

Once my heart rate dropped to normal, I took to the sky to see what she would do.

 _ **Don't wait.**_

I nearly cried out from the shock. No, those weren't my thoughts. I knew that I was one hundred percent sane, but there was no one nearby who could've said that.

"Who's there?"

 _ **Alright, I'm going to be plain here. I am lord Arceus. I have come to you in a great time of distress, and it involves the lucario you are currently stalking.**_

Already recovered from the shock, I argued back.

"I am not _stalking_ her. And for your information, I am merely just trying to help her get back to her lost owner."

 _ **Don't be stupid. I know exactly who you are. And yes, this is the topic that I want to discuss with you. Brendan, her owner, was taken by an organization that steals pokemon and will start reselling them to the public. This interregional organization is now working to take absolute control over every single PC system in every region.**_

I only understood half of what he was saying.

"What's a PC?"

I could almost sense Arceus face-palming.

 _ **How about this. Do you care about the welfare of all pokemon?**_

"Of course I do! Why do you think I'm even following the lucario right now?"

 _ **Good. Step one complete. Now, will you do exactly what I say to ensure that the lucario is successful with her endeavors?**_

"Yes."

I wasn't about to say no to the lord of all things, so...yeah.

 _ **Super! Alright, enough with that "lord of all things" voice. Just follow my lead. First, go to the day care center.**_

I began on a small glide over the largest city in Hoenn, then hovered over the small building with the large backyard behind it. All with no questions asked.

 _ **And there she is!**_

I looked down. The lucario was already walking past the man who guarded the break in the fence.

"Well, that was quick," I said needlessly.

 _ **Also, toucannon at five o'clock.**_

I should've seen (or felt) him coming, but I just had so much in my head in one moment. I dodged him, who was calling down to the lucario in greeting. She looked up, and I thought that she was looking directly into my eyes. But, for some reason, she responded as if I wasn't even there.

"What was that?" I wondered.

 _ **Well, that was exhausting. Don't make it so hard on me, alright? It's just that exerting powers on a location over a million miles away takes a lot of energy.**_

That made sense.

 _ **Just wait for this conversation to end...alright. Time does fly, doesn't it?**_

I looked down again to see the lucario having a conversation with a pair of excadrills at the peak of one of the small mountains. Even from a hundred feet up, I could hear them ranting about something. After a minute of talk, the lucario followed the pair into a hole that just randomly opened up. I dropped lower, until I was on the same peak that they once occupied.

 _Now what?_ I thought.

 _ **Be patient.**_

I stood there, still as a statue. Five minutes later, the voice returned.

 _ **MOVE!**_

I took the order without hesitation. I dove into a nearby tree to hide.

The staraptor shot out of the hole, screaming at the top of her lungs. I buried my head in my feathers to block out as much of the sound as possible.

 _Holy Arceus!_ I thought to myself.

 _ **Don't do that. I hear that phrase more often than zubats in a cave.**_

 _Sorry._

"Hey!"

The lucario had just returned.

The staraptor stopped the ground-bombing and looked over.

"Can I help you?"

An absol walked up.

"Umm, yeah, could you stop destroying stuff? I see the day care man right there," he said.

I peered through the branches to see the day care man approaching.

"Time to go?" the staraptor asked.

"Definitely," The lucario said.

The team walked back into the cave.

After a few minutes of waiting, I was given the okay to follow. I stepped through the opening, which led to an amazingly furnished underground cavern. Strangely, it looked like Tornadus had just rampaged through.

"What in the world...?"

The lucario was gone. Everyone was gone except for the two excadrills, who were knocked out. I took in the catastrophic scene, then walked over to the even messier side of the cavern. The destroyed desk had the lucario's imprint in it, as if she was shot from a cannon and landed like a perfect snow angel. I noticed something metallic on the floor next to it.

 _ **Pick it up.**_

I used my beak to try to pry off the top. It lifted, but it seemed reluctant to come off. It lit up, revealing a bright interface with a ton of strange thingies littering the nice field background. I've seen some humans use these things before. They'd always take these out when they had nothing better to do with their time. They used their fingers to put stuff on the screen, almost like magic. I decided to experiment a little. I put a claw to the screen. It reacted, opening a new picture.

 _ **Well, aren't you lucky. You clicked on the right one the first time! You see, I remembered overhearing Brynner and Addisen talking about a map of all the entrances into the complex.**_

I shook my head.

"Good for you. So, which one should I take?"

I hovered my talon over each dot on the map.

 _ **That one.**_

I stopped moving and took a closer look.

"The cave on route one-eleven? The one with that constant sandstorm?"

 _ **That's the one.**_

"Why can't I just follow them directly?"

 _ **Because they've been captured.**_

I growled.

"Seriously? Why didn't you stop them from going in?"

 _ **This is gonna be the last time that I explain things to you. After that, you'll just be left to wonder about life. Going in there... Well, that would be absolute suicide. There are people down there who are on the lookout for Brendan's pokemon. Surely, they'll capture you too as a bonus for Arvil. And you're the only well-informed pokemon left that hasn't entered into the falicity. Go to the route that I have spoken of. Ralley your troops for battle.**_

"I have no idea what your limits are. I'm going to trust you, though. I'm just praying that I won't have to hear your voice too often."

 _ **Thanks. We should have lunch sometime.**_

* * *

 **PatrioticSwellow here. So, Arceus has finally arrived! I know it may start getting a little confusing with the italics and the bold italics and the author's notes at the end, so I thought that I would help you guys a little by putting in page breaks for my comments. Also, let me know what you thought about my chapter. Should I update more often? That would mean that I'd have to cut back on playing Sun version, or cut back on my grades at school. Also, please please PLEASE leave comments on whether you like the story so far, and remember to point out the plot loop holes and grammatical errors as soon as possible. I just hate flawed work. And guess what!? I know how the rest of the story is going to play out! It's gonna have an epic ending, trust me.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	23. Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

"Now, what should I do with you?" the admin said. "You look peculiar, almost like there is something missing about you. Oh, that's right. Do me a favor and make your patterns glow."

 _Don't do it,_ I told myself. _Whatever you do, don't screw this up._

I just sat in her arms, feeling (and looking) as useless and pitiful as ever. The crowd began going about its business once it realized that the show was over.

"Well, if you aren't going to cooperate, we should probably get you into a poke ball." She reached into the tan bag over her shoulder and pulled out a great ball.

 _You got a plan B?_ I shouted.

 _ **Umm...claw her face?**_

 _Thanks. That could get me into even more trouble, but I don't think it can get any worse._

"Oh, and I'll be taking your choice scar-"

A battle call rang through the hallway, freezing everybody in the long corridor. Then panic broke loose. I took the opportunity to wrench myself free of the admin's powerful grip. Glancing back, she was already lost in the frenzied crowd of co-workers. A massive stampede started, and I got to the closest wall and pressed myself as hard as I could into it. I got stepped on several times, catapulting them into the people ahead. Then, I saw what was causing it. Streaks of red and white began shooting overhead, screeching loudly to announce their arrivals. The screaming cascade of people couldn't pull themselves together and ran for the nearest exit.

 _ **JUMP!**_

Without even considering the consequences, I obeyed. I quickly jumped on one of the passing people to get higher, then leapt to smash right into a passing braviary. She screamed out in shock, throwing the perfect arrow formation of birds into disarray. Fortunately, they regrouped quickly. Some of them separated from the main arrow, scratching at doorknobs and flooding the rooms. An alarm went off.

 _ **Ha ha! They seriously need an alarm right now? There's a freaking cloud of destruction barreling though the building!**_

 _Not now!_ I shouted in my head.

"You're covering my eyes!" the braviary shouted.

I quickly swung myself about her neck until I was on her back. She broke off from the main group and followed a few other screeching menaces though a random door. We circled the room as if we were on a roller coaster loop in Nimbasa city. Brendan wasn't there, so we shot back out into the giant hallway. By this time, most of the people were already evacuated, so there was little to no resistance left. I looked to my right just in time to see a stone archway supported by modern crafted pillars. We turned. That's when everything got confusing.

* * *

Patriot and Lenny landed in front of us, their wings outstretched in powerful fighting stances. I glared at the smiling Arvil, who walked to the close side of the protective globe. May leaned against me, still fighting for consciousness. I was amazed on how well she was holding up- literally every single pokemon had smashed her against the shield.

"I have a proposition to make with you," he said.

I remained silent. Our situation was so dire that I knew that one slip-up would probably get me into even bigger trouble than we were already in.

"Don't be shy," he said. The shadow triad flanked him from behind, waiting for anyone to make a false move.

I gulped and stood up straighter.

"What is it?" I said carefully, concealing my anger.

"If you join our organization, I will let you keep your pokemon."

I looked over to Lenny, then Patriot. They looked back, the terror and anger evident on their faces. I thought about the others, and wondered where they were at the moment.

 _ **Don't worry about where they are. That question shall be answered in a minute.**_

The situation had me at a weak spot, and a random voice in my head was the last thing I needed. I jumped.

"You don't seem to be granting me your fullest attention right now," Arvil said, his subtle smile quickly doing a one-eighty.

"N-no! It's just...nothing," I said lamely. "But _why_ would you find me useful at all?"

"Oh, if I tell you that, then you would never be able to leave this building. But of course, you already can't, so here it is: as the champion, you could market these pokemon very quickly. My scientists are paid well to research the individual and effort values of pokemon. We are planning to market these genetic wonders for large profit."

I shook my head. "I'd never help you."

Arvil smiled. "Oh, that's right. I almost forgot. If you refuse my offer, I will make sure that your pokemon won't leave this building. Not alive, at least. And your girlfriend."

I didn't have the luxury or time to correct him, so I went with the foolish action.

"Patriot! Lenny! We're leaving!"

"No you aren't. TRIAD!"

Immediately, the shield closed, and the shadow triad winked out of existence.

"Wha- where?!"

The shield returned a second later. I figured that they couldn't teleport while there was a solid object blocking them. Better store that for future reference.

Then they were in front of me. I yelped, and Lenny got in between us, using his wingspan to try intimidating them. The lead triad member drew back, and punched the poor flygon square in the face. The force blew him backwards, and I quickly got out of the way. Patriot dove in for the wing attack, but was repelled back by a force palm from the main triad. I instinctively reached for Harpy's poke ball, but then I remembered that I had nothing. I looked behind me. Lenny had recovered, and was motioning with his head towards the exit.

"Patriot! We can't fight them. COME ON!"

Before the three assailants could react to my announcement, Patriot and Lenny were already taking us as high as they could go. Pidgeots and noctowls were swirling everywhere like a tornado, buffeting us around. Even Lunala cowered in the top left corner of the room. I looked down. Arvil looked almost at ease, like he was just finishing a chess game.

"YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO JOIN US!" he shouted.

He reached into his white coat pocket. A second later, a honchcrow materialized. Arvil jumped on, followed by the three warriors on their crobats. I tugged at Lenny's green [hair?] in a panic. He snapped out of his trance and flew all the way up to the ceiling. Patriot carried May alongside, struggling with her weight.

We had nowhere to go. The exit was blocked by the protective field. If we dropped low enough, we would get clobbered by the grounded pokemon.

"Checkmate," Arvil said with a grin on his face. The shadow triad was as emotionless as ever, although there was a triumph dancing in their eyes.

 _ **Go to the door.**_

"Huh?" I said.

"What?" Arvil asked. His eyes narrowed. "Oh. Trying to distract me? Well, I would let you take as long as you wanted, but I'm on a time schedule, if you can believe it."

I was so confused, but I didn't have another option anyways.

"Dive!" I yelled.

Lenny let the gravity take over, and we plummeted towards the stone floor fifty feet below. Ignoring the still fighting crowd on the floor, we made it close to the shield. I didn't dismount the flygon; I didn't know what to do next. I looked up to see the triad on their exceptionally fast crobats, nearing fast.

BOOM!

Time seemed to freeze as something pounded on the field. After a few seconds, the pounding returned, but didn't stop. I briefly took my eyes off of Arvil to catch a glimpse of the source. A flock of braviaries.

 _No way!_

So the legend was real. The stories about the lord braviary was true.

* * *

 **Hello, fellow pokeman peoples. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Blah blah blah...**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	24. Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

I knew that I'd have to do it again. Enough force concentrated in one spot should be enough the break the shield, just like last time. But I had to wait for the right moment, maybe sometime when Arvil was distracted. As if on cue, a chorus of caws and thumps brought my attention back down below. My first thought was:

 _Praise Arceus! A bombardment of red thingies!_

My second was:

 _I guess life can be convenient at the worst moments. We just need to seize the opportunities._

I dropped closer to Lenny and let May slide onto his back, then I gathered speed.

"Patriot!" Lenny shouted.

I collided with the sphere like a brittle arrow. A shockwave blew across the room, throwing everything down. Lenny avoided the blade of air, which nearly blew the unconscious May off his back. I just couldn't take the stress of the second blow. The world turned dark.

* * *

We entered a large room, and a hectic scene met my eyes. Pokemon were everywhere, practically killing each other. Just like in the Hunger Games movie that Brendan showed us a few months before.

THUMP!

Suddenly, the braviary that I was riding made a hard turn to the right, barely missing the sudden bubble of light that covered my entire vision. It looked like someone was using the protective technique. The braviaries in front of us smashed into the sphere, and they dropped to the floor like zapped yanmas. Then I saw Brendan, May, Patriot and Lenny flying towards the exit as fast as they possibly could. I was about to call out, but then I saw some people pursuing them. The army of braviaries stopped when they realized that they were no match with the shield.

"What do we do?" one of them asked.

The bird below me turned to the quizzical braviary. I guessed that he was the leader of the group, due to his bright red feathers and the fine twigs that fanned about his head. That also led me to wondering how Arceus even arranged this.

"We'll be fine," he answered.

I wondered how he knew that, but I had no time to worry. Something was developing on the other side of the sphere. Patriot had already smashed into and through the barrier before I could even fully process the turn of events. A loud boom rocked the air.

"NOW!" the leader shouted.

We shot through the open space. Many of them surrounded Lenny, creating a bio-shield from the honchcrow's dark pulses at a distance. Arvil cried out in outrage and confusion.

"What is this?"

The incarcerated pokemon finally realized that it was their chance to escape. They began bolting towards the exit. I saw Arvil pull out a handheld remote from his front pocket. I didn't know what it did, but I was pretty sure that it was about to reactivate the shield. In my panic, the strangest thing happened. The rings that circled my ears and the ones on my forehead flashed brilliantly, almost like I was an electrified capacitor that just released everything it had. Suddenly, everyone was looking at me. The braviary that I was on nearly fainted from the shock, but she pulled herself together.

"Follow me!" I called out in the loudest voice that I could muster.

Of course, the people couldn't understand me, but Lenny was already out the door before something bad happened. The braviaries followed.

* * *

I didn't know why Coreign was so tense when he first introduced the challenge to us. His troop of braviaries saved pokemon daily, but we never helped people in distress. When we argued that we didn't want to help humans, he just snapped back at us, saying that his aura directed him to take the following actions. Now, here I was, supporting a flygon and the two trainers seated on its back.

Then, an umbreon caught my attention, who was shouting (and flashing) for us to get out of there as fast as we could. I glanced down at the floor, where the swellow lay as if he was dead. I broke off of the main group of soldiers and snatched the unconscious bird in between my talons. Then I bolted out of the room as fast as I could, following the flygon. The fast pokemon were also flooding through the door. Zubats, jolteons, and ribombees were among the first to escape. Suddenly, there was a loud buzz. The shield reappeared, trapping some of my comrades and the unfortunate slower pokemon. I knew immediately that there was no going back now. Hopefully, my brother also made it out.

* * *

My braviary glided alongside Lenny until I was close enough to jump into Brendan's arms.

"Eclipse!" He cried out in surprise.

We continued on, with me being careful not to lose anything from the scarf around my neck. The alarm still wailed like a dying wailord, but that oppressor was too far behind to do anything about it. The escaped pokemon followed us through the corridors, trusting that we knew the way out.

 _ **You sure you know where you're going?**_

I ignored him.

"An elevator!" Brendan called out.

I looked ahead- and there it was. The leader smacked the "UP" button with his talon, and the door opened without delay.

 _ **Just be glad that it's a freight elevator, or you would've been screwed badly.**_

Lenny flew to the ceiling of the car to make room for the grounded pokemon. May needed to get to a hospital quickly, and I hoped that Brendan was also aware of her critical condition. Once we were all piled in, the door automatically shut. We began our ascent back to ground level.

Everyone was quiet. Even the wild escapees were silent with anticipation. I looked at a cowering eevee that was sitting in a corner. It was sickening that we were leaving captives behind. The elevator beeped.

"Level one."

Brendan jumped from Lenny's back and landed on a bare spot on the floor. The door opened, and he stuck his head through to check for anything suspicious. He stepped back and closed the door before anyone could move.

"Here's the deal," he said. "This won't reopen once everyone's out. There will be no going back. Also, we're in Mauville city. Arvil's people are probably out there looking for us. So, let's make this simple. You all get in poke balls, and we can leave quickly. If you don't, then you're on your own."

I heard some muttering from the braviaries and the incredibly fast pokemon on the floor.

From my perch on Lenny's head, I reached into the scarf and pulled out Jaqueline's quick ball. Brendan noticed.

"What?" he asked as she appeared.

The lucario was glad to see us all, but she knew that the formality had to wait. She turned to the braviary king.

"What's going on, and what are you doing here?"

"It's our duty to rescue pokemon in need."

"You do realize that you sound rediculous, right?"

"Yeah."

"And I think we left Patriot behind," Lenny said miserably.

The blood-red bird landed in front of Jaqueline.

"I'm assuming that the flygon's referring to the swellow?"

I nodded from over Lenny's shoulder.

"Well, we have him. Layreign!"

A braviary with molted feathers dropped from the crowded ceiling with a charred bundle of feathers clutched in his claws.

"Here he is, sir."

He was in bad condition and knocked out. It was understandable. He had already endured smashing through a six-inch layer of steel, and penetrated two seemingly indestructible electric shields. Brendan knelt down and picked him up.

"You deserve a good rest," he said as he returned Patriot inside a fresh poke ball.

"Have we come to a decision?" the king asked.

"We'll escape on our own!" one of them said.

"Any opposed?"

No one did.

"All right then. Farewell, Jaqueline."

"Bye Coreign," she replied.

Brendan noticed that they had come to a decision, so he opened the door to see what would happen.

"Formation!" Coreign called.

The bravaries formed a perfect arrow in less than ten seconds. He took the lead position, then they left, leaving a small draft behind. Many of the escaped pokemon also left. Brendan turned to those who remained.

"Quick. Inside a poke ball, or you're out."

A ribombee zipped forwards. Then a golbat. Then a taillow. The jolteon was gone. Brendan quickly captured each one, until only his team remained. Lenny dropped to the floor, presumably tired from flying for so long. Brendan looked around.

"Where's Harpy and Glade?"

I nudged his leg and held up Harpy's choice scarf. He reached down and gently pulled it over my head. He pulled out two poke balls. Harpy and Glade appeared. Our team was complete. We were all back together.

"Reunions later," Brendan said tersely.

"I would appreciate it if someone told me what happened for the past hour," Harpy said angrily.

Jaqueline shook her head. "Save it for another time."

"Return."

Everything went dark.

 _ **L-O-L. Even your trainer won't let you have any fun.**_

 _Trust me, he will. I have no idea where he's taking us, though._

* * *

I had no idea what to do. Go home? Find out what Arvil was going to do next? Be a hero like I was when I stopped Kyogre from destroying the entire region? I could find Alec. Was he still in the building? I knew that Alec would be the only way to find out the best thing to do. Well, judging that Arvil would expect me to fight back (since I was the champion), he wouldn't expect me to return to Littleroot.

I carefully stepped out of the elevator, looking both ways for cameras or suspicious people. I didn't want to act shady, though. That would make me look like I was asking for trouble. Shiny greninjas were always more noticeable than the bright blue ones. Lenny was the only pokemon with me at the moment, supporting May. She was still knocked out.

Thankfully, it was crowded, so I just had to stick with the more massive groups of people. I heard the rare sound of a helicopter roaring in the distance.

 _Oh boi._

As I was moving into a more packed area, I saw someone point at me through my peripheral vision. Time to go. I booked it out of there without a second thought. Shouting could be heard over the chatter of the crowd. I pushed and shoved through the mass, the exit looming even closer. Suddenly, I tripped over something yellow that was running across the floor. Then, I was subjected to a powerful electrical jolt. Electricity flew through the air, striking passersby. I couldn't afford to get knocked out. I staggered to my feet and tried to run from the raging pikachu. People began fleeing until I was in plain sight of my pursuers. Lenny had gone off somewhere.

"You!"

By that time, the pikachu was gone, but the damage was done. There were two of them, wearing that not-so-fashionable white clothing. They yanked at my backpack until I was completely in their power. They had mightyenas at their sides, growling at me with their signature looks of pure hatred. It seemed like they didn't care that they were openly attacking me.

 _ **Kinda like some guys mugging Taylor Swift.**_

 _I can't help but not understand the comparison!_

 ** _Oh, Taylor Swift is a famous person, so..._**

They started dragging me to the closest elevator.

"Get the key," the one holding me said.

The other lifted up an identification card. I tried using my arms, but he had them locked up pretty good. I was able to move my elbows a little bit. I had to move fast. I raised my left hip, then knocked off one of the poke balls. I had no idea who it was going to be...the ball hit the floor...ECLIPSE. Out of all of my team members, it had to be Eclipse. My luck must've run out. However, with the sound of the city behind us, and the umbreon's silent tactics, the guards didn't even notice that anything happened.

He saw the position that I was in, and acted immediately. He crept up to the one holding me, then jumped. The man cried out in agony and dropped me to the pavement. I got up quickly and returned Eclipse. I sent Glade out, who immediately began trashing the men until they were both unconscious. I was out of the city less than a minute later, cursing that stupid pikachu for screwing everything up, and thankful that Eclipse was able to get me out of that mess.

Thankfully, Lenny found me with May still safely on his back. At the end of the day, there was really only one thing that tugged at the back of my mind. Everyone saw that. The _whole world_ probably saw that.

* * *

 **Man, it's been a while since I submitted a chapter. I got a little lazy, I guess. Hopefully, I will have more reviews...HA! That is just wishful thinking! I'm still going to finish this story though, whether it gets reviews or not. Writers never give up. I don't want to be one of those sad people who just beg for reviews, but I need them bad! Tell me if there were any grammatical errors or uncovered holes in the plot. Also tell me if you like where the story is headed, and if it was too fast-paced or just plain boring. Was there anything confusing? Tell me.**

 **With the best writing that my soul can muster,**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	25. Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

"Harpy, take us west," I commanded.

She turned towards Littleroot. From our location, it looked like a small blob of brown, the buildings less than recognizable from where we were. I seriously needed to get glasses.

 _Speaking of which..._

"Who's there?" I called over the sound of the wind. I could see the dot getting closer now. Harpy called out a warning in her signature ear-splitting shriek. As the object grew closer, I began to gather shades of yellow, black, and orange.

 _ **Hmm, I wonder how many pokemon would fall under this color category...**_

Once again, that strange voice echoed in my head.

"What?" I asked.

 _ **Never mind. Just tell Zapdos that I said hi, kay?**_

 _Zapdos? As in the legendary bird?_

 ** _I think you can figure that one out on your own._**

I looked forward, and saw-

"Whoa!"

Sure enough, I was finally able to make sense of what I was looking at. What would Zapdos be doing in Hoenn?

Then, I noticed the person on its back.

 _Rosa?_

 _WHAT._

 _WAAT?_

I didn't know what to say. So, I didn't say anything as she hovered only ten feet away from me, Harpy shaking with real fear. I just didn't understand. The only trainer in all of my reading (which wasn't much, by the way) that had Zapdos was the great Leaf. She was Red's friend back when he didn't take life too seriously - only several years ago.

"Leaf?" I said in awe.

She nodded sadly.

"I'm sorry, Brendan. I'm with the Cloud Cover. I was given orders to look after you."

I was a little disappointed once I realized that maybe she didn't _like_ me after all.

"Oh."

"And who is that girl with you?"

I looked back at May, who was now wide awake.

"I'm May, and I have no idea what's going on," she said.

I laughed, even though it wasn't all that funny.

"But I came to help you! I can take you to the Cloud Cover HQ. If you would just follow me..."

I shook my head.

"I have to go back to Littleroot. I need to make sure that my family's alright."

"I second that," May agreed.

"You don't want to do that, trust me. You really think that Arvil has all of his lookouts in one place?"

I didn't even consider that. I had to stop lying to myself that there was an obviously easy way out of every single problem in life. That's what screwed me in my first battle with former champion Steven.

I frowned, wondering how Leaf had become associated with the Cloud Cover.

"Where is the headquarters?" I asked.

"Just follow me."

* * *

Master shifted on my back. Was he seriously asking me to follow this bird lord to my death? Oh well, better put on a brave face for Zapdos. I sped up until we were right next to each other.

 _Oh, that's right! I waited for this day to come!_

I tilted my head down to pull something out of my scarf.

"What in the world?" Zapdos said in a deep voice.

"Word," I said, adjusting the sunglasses.

He just stared at me in confusion. Then I noticed a gear click in his mind.

"Oh, like how we're both birds?"

I thought that I died inside just then.

"Wow, that took you a while to figure out."

"Well, that meme was a thing like...maybe twenty years ago?"

"No! It's pretty new."

"Dead meme."

"How about Shrek?"

"Dead."

"Onions?"

"Dead."

I groaned.

"How about dat boi?"

"Never heard of that one."

I shook my head in exasperation.

"Ya know, the one about the politoed on the unicycle?"

"It definitely sounds awful."

"So what is in right now?" I asked, curious to see what world he came from.

We passed through the steam of the volcano, and I suspected that the headquarters wasn't in Hoenn.

"Haha. Have you ever heard of the angry magikarp?"

I tilted my head so that the sunlight reflected off them just right. "No, but it sounds great."

"Well, I could show you the video once we land."

The girl that Brendan called "Leaf" made Zapdos turn towards the sea.

"So where are we going?" I asked.

"Have you ever visited the Jhoto region?"

"Of course. I've been to all the regions. But we go to the Jhoto region the most. Brendan used to live there."

"How nice. I sometimes visit Suicune in the forest near New Bark town."

It shouldn't have surprised me that Zapdos had legendary friends. After a moment of silence, I couldn't take it anymore.

"So where exactly is the headquarters?"

 _ **Wow, how unlike you to ask a serious question.**_

 _Welp, I've officially gone crackers._

"SHOW YOURSELF! I'M ARMED! LOCKED, LOADED, AND EVERYTHING ELSE THAT YOU COULD EVER DREAM OF!" I yelled.

Zapdos shot sky-high, with Leaf screaming as loud as she possibly could. Brendan didn't react as hysterically. Ya know, since he had to deal with me twenty-four-seven. May, however, didn't take it as well.

"Harpy! What's wrong with you?"

 _ **AH. AHAHAHAHAHA! JUST THE REACTION TO CHEER ME UP!**_

I drooped my head in mock shame, just to make sure that Brendan knew that I meant no harm.

"You both alright?" he asked.

Leaf was level with us again, and was still panting heavily as if she had just ran a marathon.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Um, is your staraptor okay?"

"No. She's not okay at all. She would normally squawk a lot more. This trip must've sobered her up."

She laughed.

* * *

Arvil was fuming and calling up those who were involved with Brendan's escape. His nicely furnished office was arranged in a way to intimidate the spotlight person sitting on the opposite side of his desk. Even his administrators had a hard time looking him. Most of them didn't see him as evil, since they agreed to start working undercover for him in the first place. But there was a lot of talk behind his back. Now, that one admin who tangled with the umbreon was sitting in Arvil's spotlight, and she understood exactly what the others said about him.

They were right. When he got angry, there was an obvious dullness in his eyes, as if he was mentally counting to ten to calm himself down before he spoke. And the admin knew that getting fired would never be an option once she got associated with the company. She knew what the Cloud Cover referred to them as. The _government._ Government? She didn't know what to believe when it came to the CC's "garbage talk", as Arvil called it.

"Do you know why I called you here, Tris?"

She gulped, hoping that he didn't see it.

"You saw footage of me with the umbreon."

"Yes, and didn't I tell you to post grunts at the entrances and exits to the facility?"

She nodded.

"But I did. I didn't delay to follow your orders, sir."

"Then why didn't I see any posted?"

"They must've run off somewhere, when the braviaries arrived."

Arvil leaned forwards, his mask of a face hiding his frustration.

"Speaking of, how did the braviaries get in?"

"Don't you have footage?"

"No, I don't."

"I don't know how they got in. I was busy with the umbreon, remember?"

Arvil pulled out a NavPlus laptop from one of the many drawers in his desk.

"We'll watch where the grunts left to, then."

He pulled up the video, with the date and time displayed on the top left corner of the screen. Only ten minutes ago. Tris leaned forwards to get a better view of the screen. Everything looked normal at first. Then, she noticed the figurative exclamation point appear over the watchmens' heads. They peered through the exit to see the disturbance outside. They moved out of the camera's vision, but then were suddenly blown back by the numerous streaks of red.

Tris sat back in her seat, now confident that her day of reckoning wasn't even close.

"We're going to wait for the entire clip to end," Arvil said sharply.

The guards were now getting back up from the floor. One of them raised a finger, as if he was proposing something to the others. They nodded, then walked out of the building like there was nothing wrong with it.

She couldn't believe the treason that she saw unfold on the screen.

"What is this?" Arvil asked quietly.

"I don't know," she said in a shaky voice. "I didn't tell them to do that."

"Well, I know that the lookouts wouldn't just propose to leave without your or my own consents. They know the punishment. This leads me to believe that someone else of high command told them to do this. But don't worry, it probably wasn't you. Go back to your quarters; I'll find out which of you admins have betrayed me."

She stood up, and walked out the door. She caught her breath, and quickly made her way to her dwelling, which was situated on the opposite side of the underground. Once inside, she leaned against the wall of her dark living room. She wondered who did it, and why it happened in the first place.

 _ **If you're curious, it was me. You won't hear my voice again, so don't worry about your sanity.**_

* * *

 **Haha! I revealed a lot this chapter, huh? Okay, just remember that whenever something unexplainable happens, it was Arceus! Well, now that I told you that, I'm probably not going to use him that way again. Also, if the comments start rolling in, don't mention the female braviaries. Screw the pokedex! Female braviaries are real, okay (huge apologies to birdboy, who writes the actual pokedex)? Also, I told you that I would bring Rosa back, even though I brought her back ten chapters too late. Also, Rosa is her real name, but prefers to go by Leaf. Now that there is a seven-day break from school, expect three new chapters this next week! I'm going to take full advantage of this time away from the heck also known as "school".**

 **Remember to point out the errors that I might have missed. Rate and review.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	26. Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

 _I had always wondered what the point of high school was, what with all of the incompetent teachers and the cold-hearted students. My life wasn't that simple either. My parents always left on vacations from the moment I had grown old enough to make myself a bowl of cereal and to "never let a stranger in". I was almost always left by myself. At least I practically owned the medium sized two story building. Anyways, I said that school was getting increasingly more and more messed up with each passing day._

 _My main activity at school was to just imagine things to get through it, and most of the time, that tactic worked. But at some times, I had to face reality to keep myself alive. Enter my life, full of dullness and survival. It was the third week in my freshman year when my life had begun to unravel._

 _Lunch had to be the worst part of the day for me. The first time I had entered the overcrowded jam-packed hall, I knew that I couldn't just wander the tables looking for no one in particular. I would definitely be noticed and singled out as a target for the older and tougher low-lives around here. So I just went to the library from that first day onwards. Unfortunately, I still had to play the victim. No matter how hard people would try, they always played their assigned roles anyways, whether they liked it or not._

 _It first started while I was opening my locker. A kid the size of a barreling train slammed into me, plastering me into the metal. I grunted and crumpled to the floor, very aware that there were people watching me all the way down the long hall. The beefy kid turned to me._

 _"What was that for? I was just minding my own business and then you had to be in my way."_

 _My face turned red hot with anger as the nearby people laughed. I noticed that they were all large and strong just like the kid who smashed me. Oh no. No. NO... They were his friends, and now I was a target to all of them. If this year was going to be anything like last year, then I would be ready to permanently ditch school. The burly guys walked away. Thank goodness for the security cameras mounted in the halls. They had to stage their attack on me as an accident, so they couldn't exactly beat me up the way they really wanted to._

 _Why is it always me? Other than the fact that I am a loner, what have I ever done to deserve this?_ I thought.

 _The bell was about to ring, so I quickly grabbed what I needed from my locker. I looked at my reflection from the phone that I had just pulled from my pocket. A boy with dark eyes and dark smooth hair looked back. I noticed a small bruise on my chin where I had collided with the locker. Eh. Nothing too major. I had gotten bigger injuries in the past. I walked to Earth Science to endure another hour of chaos before I went home._

 _I quickly rushed to my lone seat on the left side of the classroom before I was marked tardy. Luckily, I wasn't. Mr. Borin took roll, then stood in front of the room waiting for quiet._

 _"All right. We have several things due today, so please pay close attention. I am going to put on a video, and all you have to do is just take some notes. This will be your study guide to help prepare you for the upcoming test next week."_

 _There was a loud moan from the class. I rolled my eyes. This was no big deal._

 _"Maybe you would do better on the test if you paid close attention, so please refrain from talking too much. Got it?"_

 _We nodded. The teacher, satisfied that he gave us enough instruction (which probably wasn't), dimmed the lights and fired up the overhead projector._

 _The last class of the day was over; I was tired of the endless mayhem that was Mr. Borin's classroom. Clash Royale was a huge thing those days, and he was on it while we watched videos of whale biology-completely unsupervised. Nightmares were real, people. I walked the mile back to the lonely house I called "home". I clumsily put my backpack and instrument down to get the key underneath the mat. Yep, I also used that classic trick. A minute later, I was collapsed onto my bed. I always thought that it was strange that I always enjoyed sleeping during the day, and wrote essays at two in the morning. It was only five in the afternoon when I fell asleep, while reading an interesting book about discovering truth._

* * *

 _I opened my eyes. Wherever I was, it was really cold and dark. I could just barely see the outline of clean-cut rocks jutting out of the ground in neat rows._

 _Some dream, I thought. Unfortunately, the idea that none of this was real died quickly. I could feel the night air on my face. I could think rationally. Nah, this was no dream. Panic began to well up in my stomach, which rose to my throat._

 _"AAHHH!"_

 _Nothing made sense to me at all. Where was my bedroom? After screaming a little bit more, I finally decided to have a look around. The moon came out, which conveniently gave me enough light to inspect the stones. Before I could take another step, something else happened. Alongside the moon, there was a faint bluish glow coming from somewhere. For some reason, I couldn't find where it was coming from. I finally lifted my hands in frustration. For the second time that night, I screamed my lungs out. My hands...weren't hands anymore. They were paws. I had turned into some kind of animal. A fox maybe? Upon further inspection I realized that I was giving off the glow, from the rings on my legs and...I looked up...ears. This was getting even weirder for me, so I just collapsed back into the soft grass._

 _"I don't want to deal with this!" I shouted to the sky. Oh boy. On top of everything else, I could talk like a normal person._

 ** _BUT YOU HAVE TO._**

 _I shot from the floor like it had just turned into lava. Who was that?_

 _"H-hello? Who's there?"_

 _The voice returned as an echoing voice in my head._

 ** _DON'T YOU WORRY ABOUT THAT. THE COUNCIL AGREED TO PICK YOU. DON'T YOU FEEL LUCKY? OUT OF THE HUNDREDS OF HUMANS WE HAVE NOMINATED, WE CHOSE YOU. JUST REMEMBER, THERE WILL EVENTUALLY BE A WAY FOR YOU TO GET BACK HOME. SOMEONE WILL FIND YOU WITHIN THE HOUR. GO WITH THEM-IF YOU WANT TO GO BACK._**

 _"But what if I don't want to?" I called out with less fear in my voice._

 ** _THEN DON'T GO. JUST SIT HERE AND FAIL US ALL._**

 _The voice didn't come back after that. I was normally able to show no emotion when in pain or excited, but this was so messed up that I just had to cry. A few minutes later, I recovered enough to finally inspect the stones. They had names carved into them with the given birth and death dates. Wow. Whatever or whoever brought me to this place will pay for sending me directly to a cemetery. Now I had a reason to leave as soon as possible. I couldn't run just yet; normally I had only two legs. I began my descent on what looked to be a large mountain._

 _A few minutes later, I could see a path. My vision was surprisingly good, even with the fog and other factors someone could find during Halloween. Then, my ears picked up on something. Sobbing. My heart jumped to my throat, and an internal war began in my head. Should I investigate? The possibilities were endless. I felt a pull towards the cry, until I was only feet from the...whatever it was. I crept closer._

 _It was a boy, probably around twelve years of age, and he was...digging._

 _My mind went blank with horror. Why was I intruding? WHY?_

 _The boy turned his head and looked directly into my eyes. Moments past. I couldn't tell what was going through his head, but I could bet that it was getting confusing for him. I stepped forwards to show that I wasn't threatened._

 _He wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve then held out his hand._

 _"Hello there."_

 _Wherever I was, It must've been normal for creatures like me to speak._

 _"Are you alright?" I asked._

 _"My name is Brendan," the boy said, as if he couldn't hear me._

 _"Hello?" I said a little louder._

 _Brendan looked concerned._

 _"Are you alright?"_

 _"I could ask the same about you," I said, a little more quietly._

 _"I'm sorry. You caught me at a wrong moment," Brendan said._

 _"Yeah, I'll leave..." I slowly backed off._

 _"No!" He stood up quickly. "You're a shiny. In other words, you're mine."_

 _I figured that something bad was about to happen. I turned my tail to him, and-_

 _The strangest thing happened. I was engulfed in a bright light, and my consciousness left._

* * *

 **This was going to be the first prologue and chapter of my prequel (of this story, of course), but then I decided to cancel it. I was lazy again, I guess. There was a good reason for Brendan to be on mount Pyre those few years ago... Also, I am aware this this must be sounding like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - ya know, because of the "human turned into pokemon" thing. Rate and review.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	27. Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

I woke up from my nightmare. Then I felt Brendan poking my ears. I mentally counted to ten, then opened my eyes. His face was lined with concern. I looked through the haze of my previous sleep and noticed everyone else looking at me.

"Eclipse…" Glade's voice trailed off.

"What?" I said, more forcefully than I thought was possible.

Patriot stepped forwards. It always seemed like he had a smug look on his face, but that was just how all swellows looked. But somehow, he was able to break through that.

"You…I don't know how to say this, but you looked like…a person."

"It was like you were fizzing," Lenny said, keeping a fair distance from me.

Brendan picked me up, and carried me to the table in the middle of the room.

May was sitting in one of the chairs, and looked like she was ready to punch something.

"What was that?" she hissed at Brendan.

I had already put the pieces together. Brendan forgot to get May's pokemon from Arvil. No one knew what he could do to them. And then, when they were arguing, I started to "glitch out", according to Harpy.

Brendan shook his head.

"I have no idea, but we could ask Leaf if she knew something about stuff like this."

I looked across the dimly lit room to the doorway. Leaf was standing there, the bewilderment evident on her face. She walked over to the table, and put her hand through my fur. It felt so good.

"I have never seen a pokemon do that before. And that person...he looked like your umbreon."

"You're right, he even had the same expression," Brendan agreed.

"But we need to put this issue on the backburner," Leaf said. "I should take you to Kurt."

Harpy inched forwards, followed by everyone else.

"Who do you think Kurt is?" I asked, desperate for a normal conversation.

It took them a full half-minute to even register what I said.

"I-how would I know?" Patriot shrugged.

"Come on," Brendan said tiredly.

The six of us walked out of the suite into a hallway similar to the one at Arvil's. The place seemed much more welcoming. Instead of the bland walls, it seemed much more colorful and warm. Leaf walked to the front of the group.

"Nice place," Jaqueline said needlessly.

"Thanks for your insightful comment!" Harpy said, instantly sucking the tension right out of existence.

We continued walking, passing a ton of doors on the way. I wondered what was inside each one. Maybe Brendan could give us some time to rest from all of the violence. Unfortunately, I knew that it wasn't up to him. I bumped my head into the back of Glade's foreleg, who flinched as if I had pokerus.

I didn't apologize. It felt as if a new wall was formed between me and everyone else, and I couldn't tell if I liked this new development yet.

"Here we are," Leaf said.

We walked though a door. I coughed.

"It smells like molten metal," Patriot said.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Jaqueline said as she held a hand to her mouth.

I just stood there, listening to them talking. I wondered what I would've sounded like if I could hear my umbreon self as a person.

"They're not...melting pokemon, right?" Lenny asked.

"Probably not," Patriot shrugged.

There was an old man sitting on a stool, with a hot piece of metal sticking out of some sort of furnace. He stood up as we approached.

"Mr. Kurt, this is Brendan," Leaf said.

Brendan stepped forwards and held out his hand.

"Hello."

Kurt returned the formalities, then turned to Leaf.

"So, what can I help you all with?"

May stepped up, with that cross look still on her face.

"First of all, what are you doing?"

"First of all, what are _we_ doing?" Harpy commented.

"Shut up," Glade whispered.

"You shut up!" Harpy shouted back.

That's when Brendan turned around and glared at us. They snapped back to attention. I turned my gaze back to Kurt.

"Oh, this is my poke ball blacksmith. I make poke balls that don't have those built-in transmitters. In other words, they don't communicate with the PCs found in pokemon centers."

"That's neat," Brendan said, "because Alec told me that the Corruption could take control of our pokemon if we ever deposit them in PCs."

"You're kind of lucky," Leaf said. "You must be really attached to your pokemon if you've never deposited them."

"But what does Arvil want?" May asked. "Our pokemon?"

Kurt shook his head.

"Well, we have evidence that he's just into the money involved. But I guess you could say that he's interested. Thankfully, he doesn't know that we are fully aware what he's doing. But he knows that you're with us now, so he'll assume that we know now."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a problem," Brendan said.

I looked up at May. There was a frown on her face.

 _Huh. After being upset with him, I would've thought that she'd enjoy this apology. Even friends would do that to each other...OH!_

 _ **What a genius.**_

"You can still be of help to us," Kurt said. "You just need to be directed. Here. Whether you're going to help or not, you should take these."

I jumped onto Lenny's back to get a better view. Kurt went over to one of the many desks that sat at the edges of the the room.

"Neat," Brendan said.

They were poke balls. And they looked pretty fancy. Like a luxury ball on steroids.

"Oh, I gotta have that!" Harpy exclaimed.

"Patience is a virtue," Patriot muttered.

"Of course it is," Harpy said impatiently.

Even though I no longer was on good terms with everyone, I had to enjoy the light-hearted conversation. That is, if Brendan took us on some other fruitless adventure.

"They don't have trackers either, do they?"

Kurt smiled.

"I crafted these myself. Its only function is to send out and withdraw pokemon."

"Kurt, what about me?" May asked.

"Be patient May, you'll get some too."

"What a classic line," Leaf said as Kurt went back to the box.

He returned, holding six more of the same type of ball. And three of another type.

"Okay, I haven't seen that one," Leaf said. "Is it new?"

"It sure is. And you each get one of these crowd balls. Please note that the crowd ball is twice as weak as the poke ball when it comes to capture. But it can hold up to twelve pokemon at a time."

Brendan took his reverently.

"Thank you."

"Yeah," May agreed. "Maybe now I can start catching some new pokemon."

I could feel the anger coming off her in waves.

 _ **Heh. You're a regular Dearth Sidious, aren't ya?**_

"I'm sorry, okay? You don't have to rub my failure in! You were knocked out almost the whole time, and I had to get you out of the pokemons' way!"

Tears came to May's eyes. Kurt and Leaf backed away. Harpy...Oh Arceus. She was spreading her wings out until each tip touched both trainers' legs.

"You risked your life...for me?"

 _ **I can't bear this cliche, ay?**_

"It wasn't the first time," Brendan countered.

That's when I had to shield my eyes. Patriot whistled. Lenny flashed bright red, but he paled in comparison to our trainer. Brendan's eyes were shut, and his breathing was heavy.

"D'Awwww!" Kurt said, holding a thumb up in approval.

As Brendan stood there, he lifted his left hand. The crowd ball was pointed directly at Patriot. I watched as the beam hit.

 _That's the weirdest light I've ever seen._

The swellow wasn't sucked in immediately, however. He glowed brighter...until the light literally touched the pokemon next to him. Harpy glowed, and the domino effect went through all of us. I lit up, then was temporarily knocked out.

* * *

 **Listening to the "Someday…" theme from Sun and Moon version! And let me tell you, It's worth listening to! Also, I discovered this magical land called "Pokemon Amino".**

 **IMPORTANT: I'm having this feeling that I'm not addressing something important to the story. And, I think the love thing is happening at the wrong time, especially for those who are specifically looking for those romantic fanfictions.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow out.**


	28. Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

I opened my eyes, expecting to see some kind of platform with my other "friends". It was a platform, just not the kind that I was expecting.

"Dim the lights, will you, Palkia?"

"Yes my lord," a voice returned.

"Wha-where am I?" I stuttered.

"How about you look around?"

As the lights dimmed to a bearable level, I gasped. A lot of strange things have happened in my past, so I wasn't as surprised as another person would've been if he came face-to-face with the God of all pokemon. And a couple others that I couldn't even name. It was almost blinding.

I was in a great hall of some sort, with a fine golden carpet that made its way all the way to the seemingly endless ceiling. I didn't know which way to turn. I looked left - nope, a humanoid pokemon there. I spun in a full circle. No way out. Well I could try going up, since I was supposedly in space.

"Aww, look at him! Reminds me of those parakeets in the nonmon world."

I screamed, even though I knew that it wasn't going to help me.

"Aww," a pink cat-like pokemon said. "You should send him back home."

"What? No!" I yelled.

"Someone please calm him down," a voice boomed.

"Oh, you thought that I meant to send you back to your really old life. No, silly!" the pink pokemon said, pointing her index finger at me.

Arceus stepped from seemingly nowhere, showing himself to me for the first time. I caught my breath before it flew out the window. He was magnificent, and I was probably the first mortal to actually know what colors were on him.

"Alright, you can stop gawking now. I just wanted to tell you something of major importance."

I gulped, then uttered something unintelligible.

"I'll take that as a yes. Okay. I'll start from the beginning. You, Eric Mathiensen, have something within you that could determine whether Arvil is going to successfully take over not only Hoenn - but the entire world of pokemon."

I gathered up my courage and said, "What would that be?"

Arceus placed his right hoof only three feet away from me, digging it into the golden carpet. It felt a lot closer, due to his sheer size.

"There's no need to rush to conclusions right now. Dialga is away, so every twelve minutes here is only one second in the pokemon world."

There was no mist anywhere in sight. Speaking of...

"Am I dead?" I asked.

"No, you're just hanging onto life by a thread," Arceus said, still standing still in the vast hall. "Would you like to see it?"

"The thread?"

"Yeah."

"B-but sir, if the mortal looked at it he would-"

"-I KNOW, SHAYMIN, I WAS JOKING!" Arceus boomed.

I looked to my left to see an adorable grass pokemon crawl away, looking ungrateful to be treated in such a rude manner. I didn't bother to ask what would happen if I looked at my lifeline. Arceus turned back to all of the other legendaries.

"You can all clear out now."

They all flew away to some place beyond my eyesight, muttering. Even the ones without wings were somehow able to take to the vast sky. I blinked - and even Arceus was gone.

Suddenly, I was able to define what I was looking at. I was in the Hall of Origin, the place where the order of the universe was governed. A place of legend. Well, now I knew for a fact that it was a real place. There stood Arceus on his throne, with Ho-oh's rainbows shooting out in every glorious direction.

"Welcome to the throne room, Eric Mathiensen. We have much to talk about."

* * *

When we parted, I was still unable to process what had just happened to me. But I had to put up a confident smile for her to show that I appreciated it.

"We'll get your pokemon back from Arvil," I said, as I put the crowd ball into my pocket. "I swear it."

She kissed me again. A minute later, Leaf cleared her throat. We looked over at her.

"We should go," she said.

"Go where?" May asked, still panting from lack of oxygen.

"To get your assignments from our leader," Kurt explained.

I stared at him incredulously. "So, they do put kids to work around here."

Kurt laughed in his obnoxious old man voice. "Hey, it's not like you're ten anymore. Full-grown adult, I'd say, with a hot new girlfriend."

May groaned. I on the other hand had no response for him.

"Come on," Leaf said.

I didn't bother to take my team out of the crowd ball, so I just decided to believe that they would be able to take care of themselves.

 _You sure about that?_ my conscience laughed. _Just imagine Harpy in there, free to roam. With every other pokemon backed against some wall._

"Oh well," I said aloud.

* * *

"All right, everyone up against the wall!"

Everyone (with the exception of Eclipse) immediately moved to a corner of the ball generated room.

"What are you going to do to us?" Lenny asked fearfully.

I tried to look confident that she wasn't being serious, just to calm the fearful flygon.

"We need to find out how we can drag out the inner human," Harpy said, grinning in her unique staraptor way.

"So you're telling me that you want him to officially transform back into a person?" Patriot laughed.

"How do you even know that he even _is_ a person?" Jaqueline said snidely. "I mean, no one really knows what happened to him. He didn't even say anything to us when he came to earlier."

"No. Nah, I know he's a human," Harpy concluded. "We just need to find a way to drag it out of him."

"What do you mean by 'we'?" Jaqueline countered.

"Oh, that's right. I meant ' _I_ '. Meanwhile, you five just stay over there like good little infernapes."

"You aren't being serious, right?" I said.

As an absol, I actually could sense her mal intentions, as could the lucario that stood beside me. And I couldn't sense anything good.

"Ha! I'm always serious."

Jaqueline placed her hand on my tail. Of course, she didn't cut herself, but I knew that she was trying to communicate something. There was that sly gleam in her eyes, then I saw her mouth.

 _"Get Eclipse,"_ she mouthed.

I nodded in understanding. As the staraptor circled around her prey, I tried my best to disappear into the shadows of the room.

"Umm, Harpy?" Jaqueline said.

"What? Dija find a mega stone for staraptors?"

"Well, no."

"Then I don't care."

"I-I could really use one," Lenny chimed in.

"No one cares about stupid flygons," Harpy said carelessly.

He didn't respond. I was already on the opposite corner of the room, and she didn't notice. Or, at least I thought she didn't.

"You think I'm blind, Glade? You're half-white!" With that, she came down and smacked me backwards. Wow, my stealth was blown pretty quick. From out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jaqueline pick the umbreon up and carry him behind Lenny, who was the second biggest pokemon on our team.

I got up from the floor and brushed myself off. I had a chance to knock her out, but it probably wasn't anywhere near good. I sprang back into the air and tackled her to the ground.

"I know you have him, Lenny!" she shouted as feathers flew everywhere.

"Hold tight!" Jaqueline shouted, as her palm began to glow with a bluish aura.

I prayed that she wouldn't miss, because her aura sphere could seriously injure me for days. It would be enough to knock Harpy out, though.

"Stop!" Harpy screeched. "I just want to help!"

"Next time," I said, and managed to pin her to the floor. "NOW!"

I looked over at Jaqueline. Her eyes burned with blue fire, and the sphere of power was released. I jumped clear as the sound similar to a gunshot reverberated off of the walls. Then everything was still.

* * *

 **Hi. I put some of the chapter in a little bit earlier than usual. I was bored, and my social life was suffering. But hey, at least I'm not tongue-tied when writing a story to people that I won't ever cross paths with. There may be a small break in writing for me to figure out the rest of the plot. Also, I noticed some more errors in earlier chapters that are really annoying me.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	29. Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

"Would you like some food?"

I nodded. I wasn't about to say no to Arceus. Not accepting a service from him could mean instant death. Probably.

Suddenly, a table appeared, covered with the most colorful food I had ever seen. The Hall of Origin surely had everything that I could've ever dreamed of.

"Thank you," I gasped, realizing how hungry I actually was. As I approached the platters, I was suddenly aware that I was standing on two legs. I moved my right paw in front of my face. It wasn't a paw...

"OH FREAKIN' ARCEUS!" I yelled. It was just so shocking to see such old - yet familiar features again.

"Calm down," Arceus said in a soothing voice.

"Okay. I'm calm."

"Well, take some food."

Thankfully, I was wearing clothes, so I was perfectly able to sit down and eat with my hands, as there were no utensils provided. Arceus sat in front of the table, sitting on his large throne, staring intensely at me. It was getting a little uncomfortable. I didn't say anything.

"Good. Now, while you're eating, I need to make some things very clear to you," Arceus said.

I nodded through mouthfuls of the tasty food that I couldn't even identify.

"So, I wanted to show you several scenes, concerning Arvil and his plans for... Well, I don't have a better term for this. World domination."

I continued to listen carefully. Amazingly, there were several times already where I almost interrupted him.

"You see, his objectives are quite simple. One: He wants to take control over the PCs in every single region, so then he can abduct a trainer's pokemon with the push of a remote. Two: He's already got some pokemon, and has been putting them through battles in a new special method he calls 'EV training.'

"Three: Have these super - pokemon released into the market. But, he's also doing something unspeakable to them before marketing them."

"What?" I asked, dreading what Arceus was going to say next.

"He's basically the extent of George Orwell's greatest achievements in his writing. Arvil's brainwashing them. Brainwashing the reason right out of the poor creatures."

I had read some of Orwell's books before I left the "Nonmon" world, and it wasn't fun. Even Animal Farm had its own dark twist.

"He plans to destroy the entire Hoenn region, and rebuild his own little empire on top of it, with him as king."

"Wait, so why doesn't he just bomb the entire region and be done with it?" I asked. "And why are you telling me? Brendan could probably do better with this information than I could."

Arceus leaned forward. "A fair question. Or questions, rather. Arvil finds that bombing the region would just bring up a lot more problems. He doesn't have enough explosives to take out every region at the same time; that's just way too much land for him to cover.

"But, he can use the power of the PC system. The database server for every single PC lies at the poke ball factory in the Kalos region."

"So, he doesn't have access to the system yet," I observed.

"That's right. Arvil wants to remain as invisible to the public as possible, which is also why he doesn't yet operate the Hoenn region openly. Undergound tunnels are a classic way for him to remain invisible."

"Seems like Arvil doesn't have much money to work with," I said.

"Gee, you're smart," Arceus chuckled.

I shoveled some unfezant into my mouth thoughtfully. "So, why me?"

"I'm telling you these things because Brendan could not utilize this information like you can. You carry the mark of the Nonmon world. You're not the first pokemon that once lived in the world without these powerful creatures surrounding them. And they've all had unusual abilities. Like I said earlier, I don't control everything. Also, the effort of bringing you here would seriously weaken me, and that would take a decade for you to complete the journey.

"So, you are basically "facetiming" me in your unconscious dreams."

I stared at him apprehensively. "What abilities?"

"Well, you did flash exceedingly bright when you needed some attention in Arvil's place," Arceus pointed out. "I don't know if that means that your ability is to flash brightly, which would suck."

I agreed with that. "So now what?"

"You may be shocked to hear this, but I'm going to send you back the way you are now."

I looked down at my hands and feet. "Seriously?"

"Don't worry, you'll basically be a superhuman now, since you aren't going to lose any of the powers that you retained as an umbreon."

"Wow."

"I know, right? But you'll also be able to make some use of your communication skills," Arceus said proudly.

I found it interesting that I could even have a conversation with the god of all pokemon without a single stutter. Maybe his presence was giving me strength.

"But I didn't even talk much at my old school," I complained.

"That's not exactly what I meant," Arceus said, "although you will be needing social skills on top of your ability to commune with pokemon."

I had so many questions unanswered, but I could sense a finality to his last sentence.

"I'm going to send you back the way you came. Cresselia, come back!"

A golden ring appeared in front of the banquet table next to Arceus's throne. A beautiful creature emerged, glowing pink mixed with purple about the two feather-like appendages that came from its long tail.

"Oh, and don't worry about time," Arceus said. "Down there, only five minutes have passed."

"Yes?" the mythical pokemon said in a feminine voice.

"End his dream."

"As you wish," she giggled happily.

My peripheral vision was turning dark. I was ready to sink into oblivion before the lord had one last thing to tell me.

"Oh, and Eric?"

I turned back around.

"Just because I've been so formal for the past five minutes, don't expect the sarcastic comments to be stopping any time soon."

I nodded, then sank into the darkness. Laughing at my situation.

* * *

 **PatrioticSwellow here, bearing some bad news. I don't know how I'm going to say this carefully, without hurting someone's day. If there's silent readers out there holding onto every single word of this fanfic, I'm sorry. The story is going to go on a hiatus. I know, it's sad, but I need to catch up on my reading logs for school. You know how that goes. Go enjoy some other pokemon fanfictions for the next few months or so. Expect chapter 30 sometime in the early June of 2017. Summer break. A time for driver's - ED and my first job applications. Yay. But I can't get any grades lower than a "C", or else I'll be grounded from WRITING for all time and eternity. Once again, I apologize. Go read "That Lucario" or something.**

 **Regards,**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. Check for grammatical errors...**


	30. Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

Once we had dragged the unconscious Harpy out of the way, we pulled out the umbreon from behind Lenny's back, who was also dead to the world.

"I guess we just wait now," Glade said, who was still bleeding a little from the scuffle with the staraptor. Jaqueline levitated Harpy over into a corner of the room. Then, something strange happened to the umbreon that was sleeping before us.

We backed off, while Eclipse began to fizz and change shape once again.

"What's happening, Patriot?" Lenny asked.

I didn't answer, because I seriously had no idea.

A person began to form, standing straight up, with a beige light radiating about him. The human shape was opaque, as was the umbreon on the floor, which was rapidly becoming even more distant. We held our breaths as the transition completed. Then he collapsed to the floor in shock.

Glade inched forwards and prodded Eclipse's cheek with his front claws retracted. There was no response. I flew up and landed on his back. Then I walked up to his head and called into his ear.

"Arrgg!"

That's when I was thrown off his back. Eclipse whipped around to see us all. There was a moment of silence while we took each other in. He had dark brown hair, dark eyes, and the most grim face that I've ever seen. Crazily enough, he still looked a little bit like an umbreon, due to the faintest shadows of his blue rings in their respective places.

I stepped forwards in a friendly gesture. Then, the strangest thing happened. He flashed with a dazzlingly bright light, and we all were temporarily blinded. I staggered away from him until my vision returned.

"What was that for?" Glade asked angrily.

Jaqueline looked thoughtful. "He can't understand us. We'll never be able to speak to him again."

It hit me like one of her flash cannons. It was true. We've heard the last of Eclipse.

"N-no, that isn't true."

Lenny's eyes widened. "Wow."

"He still speaks pokemon," I said, my mind reeling. "Does this mean that he won't be able to communicate with Brendan?"

"Please don't talk to me," Eclipse said, and walked over to the corner opposite of Harpy's. "At least not for a few minutes."

I remembered the tension that first arose between us and the umbreon when he first showed his extra - peculiar side. When we first found him knocked out - and had begun to display his "inner human" hologram above his dead - looking position on the floor. I guessed that he didn't want to be around us for awhile until he got his inner turmoil straight.

Of course, Lenny couldn't take the hint. "Eclipse! Come sit with us!"

Jaqueline patted the flygon's head like she would a toddler. "Leave him be."

"But why? He looks lone-"

"Shut your face," Eclipse snapped.

I knew that I was a bird-brain, but I was smart enough to realize that Eclipse had gone through some serious identity switching when he was knocked out. It probably helped that he now looked like a completely different person - like literally. Lenny didn't take Eclipse's words too harshly. He was learning fast.

"Just give him time," I whispered. As I stared into the bewildered faces of my friends, I could somehow feel my molecular structures reform as I re-entered into the light. We found ourselves in a conference room of some sorts - tables and everything else to make it seem more professional. I hovered at Brendan's face level, and spun around to face Eclipse. May and Leaf - who were in some kind of conversation - stopped talking to see him standing up from his crouched position on the floor.

"That's the umbreon!" May gasped. A person that I've never seen before stood up from behind the desk in the back of the room.

"I don't know who this boy is, so we should get to know each other!" he said, pointing to the newcomer. I understood that his main target was Eclipse, who was probably the first human ever to be successfully contained in a poke ball. I just hoped that he wouldn't lash out at him like he did at Lenny.

* * *

I looked at May, hoping that she still wasn't angry with me, because kissing in anger probably wasn't a good thing for her. Or me, for that matter. Then, our group made a sudden turn to the left into some kind of conference room. A balding man was waiting at the back of the room in a desk.

"Hello! Leaf, did you bring Brendan and May?"

"Sir, you should get some glasses," Leaf said.

"Are you kidding?" the old man said. "I probably have better eyesight than you do."

"Well, they're right here," Leaf said.

"Hello," I greeted. "I take it that you're the leader here?"

"You are correct," he said. "My name is Robbie, but you may call me Mr. Clem. Let me introduce the organization that my associates and I are running here. It may sound a little corny, but we actually refer ourselves as the 'Resistance,' or 'Cloud Cover', if you want to be more formal. In public, you should refer to us as the 'CC'."

"Yes, and we were just a Kurt's place. He said that you were going to assign missions to us," May said.

"That's right -" he struggled for the name - "May. I trust that you two remember Alec?"

"Yeah," I said. "He was good to us, and we just left him behind." I lowered my head in shame. It just wasn't fair to him at all. On top of that, May's pokemon were still in that horrid battle room getting "EV trained" and brainwashed. May put her arms around my neck. "We'll get him back. And my pokemon, too. But we need to move soon."

"Good," Mr. Clem said. "I'll give you the specifics of your mission later. First, Brendan, could you let me photograph you and your pokemon? I just want to keep records of them to refer to for future reference."

"No problem," I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crowd ball. I could only stare once it had released. All of my pokemon looked like they'd just been through the battle of Kalos. Harpy was knocked out, and Eclipse was, well, a human.

"Holy crap."

He stood up, looking very pale in the face.

"That's the umbreon!" May gasped. Patriot landed on my shoulder to get a better view of the mess of pokemon below. Lenny looked stoned and gray feathers were everywhere. Mr. Clem walked around his desk and held out a hand to Eclipse. "I don't know who this boy is, so we should get to know each other!" he said.

"H-hello," Eclipse said. I walked up to greet him. I had to admit, it was super awkward that he was now taller than me by a couple of inches.

"Hi," I said.

"How are you?" Eclipse said, looking calmer already.

"Strange huh?" May said. "You two have been together for a long time, and we know nothing about you!"

"Yeah," I said, my mind reeling. _Where did his clothes come from?_

Leaf timidly walked up. "So, what was it like being a pokemon?" she asked. Eclipse choked on his first words that I couldn't understand, but was interrupted by Mr. Clem. "Hey! You should slow down on him! He's just been through the ride of his life. Give him some space."

"No, it's fine," Eclipse managed out. The mood lifted throughout the room once he got his act together. There was an awkward silence.

"You should probably check on your staraptor," Mr. Clem said.

"Jaqueline shot her down with an aura sphere," Eclipse said.

"Why?" I asked.

"According to Patriot, she was trying to 'bring out my inner human'. Right?"

I turned to the bird on my shoulder. He nodded.

"This is incredible," Mr. Clem said breathlessly. "He can still communicate with pokemon. Just like Natural Gropius."

"Who's Gropius?" Eclipse asked. I was also curious.

Mr. Clem went to one of the chairs that were lining the conference table and turned it around. I did the same and was followed by May and Leaf. Glade swept Harpy out of the way and sat next to Jaqueline and Lenny, who were watching Eclipse intensely.

"Natural Harmonia Gropius once worked for Team Plasma," Clem began. "He was found in the woods with a zorua and the other common forest pokemon. The person who found him was none other than Ghetsis, a powerful crime lord. He was astonished by N's powerful ability to communicate with pokemon. It made him special. No one has ever figured out how he's been able to do it though."

"I think I might know."

I could tell that a long-lasted debate was about to come to a close. Eclipse could speak with pokemon. And he was willing to share.

"First, I need to tell you everything from the beginning."

I listened carefully as he spilled the beans. He was from another world, a different dimension. A dimension where pokemon didn't exist. And there was high school that lasted until students were eighteen years old. And he hated it in that world. So the mighty Arceus took pity on him, and brought him here to me. It was all beginning to make sense. That's why he was shiny! Arceus knew that shiny pokemon couldn't turn down capture.

Then, a dark thought crossed my mind. Was that why Swampy died? My beloved swampert, dead because of Arceus's will? That freak accident when he threw himself off the cliff? It was all clicking together, and a new anger started to boil in my stomach.

"I know that this is going to sound a little far-fetched, but please hear me out. When Brendan sucked me into the crowd ball, I received a vision from Arceus."

May shared a skeptical glance with me, which I didn't return kindly.

"For real?" I said.

"Please listen to me. I swear, I'm not lying to you. Arceus took me to the Hall of Origin, where he-"

"-Oh, don't worry, I know you aren't lying. Don't worry..." Then I ran out of the room, knocking Patriot off my shoulder in the process.

* * *

 **Holy crap. I sure hope that you're all following the plot advancement. I'm afraid that it's getting too complicated for its own good. Please, work out, story! A word of advice, though: Read chapter 26 again if this chapter didn't make sense.**

 **Note: Hiatus isn't over yet. But I wanted you all to have something to ponder. Expect chapter 31 at the beginning of summer break. Have a great day.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

The renewed sadness for my lost friend was Arceus's fault. Only to make way for Eclipse. Why didn't Arceus just tell me what the umbreon's job was from the beginning? Eclipse was shiny after all! It wasn't like I wouldn't have captured him anyways... It just made no sense.

May found me right outside the door with my hands over my eyes. "Hey."

I looked up with a look mixed between distraught and baffled. "Hi." I put my hands back over my eyes and slid down to the floor in a curled position. Then I felt the most wonderful feeling as she put a hand on my back and rubbed it.

 _Well, I guess I'm not in the worst situation possible._

"What's wrong?"

"It's all Arceus's fault. All his fault."

She crouched down next to me. "You can tell me anything. I can't judge you."

"That's why Eclipse was shiny. Arceus dropped him off on Mount Pyre to replace Swampy."

She gasped in realization. "That would explain a lot, but are you saying that Arceus killed him?"

I nodded, still keeping in my little shell. "It's not Eclipse's fault," I said. "If I blamed him for what Arceus did, then might as well also blame the gun for murder."

"I thought that you were going to have a permanent grudge," May said.

"Don't ever think that I would be irrational," I said.

"Then... What if it wasn't Arceus? Maybe he knew that Swampy was going to die, so he sent Eclipse to replace her. I wouldn't think too hard right now until we know more about what happened."

I nodded. "Okay."

The conference door opened again and Eclipse walked out. "Just in case if you're angry at me, I'm sorry for what I've put you through."

I stood up and shook his hand amiably. "None of this was your fault. It's fine."

He smiled back. "Well, if we're going to be friends, I should let you know that my real name is Eric."

"Eric," I repeated. "I'm going to say your name wrong for a while."

"That can be expected," he replied.

"Believe me, I can't even do simple names."

* * *

"Did you see Eclipse?" Jaqueline said. "I don't know about the human standards much, but I'd hazard a guess that he's gotten a lot more attractive."

"I'm just going to disregard that comment," Patriot said.

I scraped my blade of a horn on the floor, trying to sharpen it. But the stone just seemed to make it even duller than usual.

"What are you doing?" the staraptor asked.

"Preparing for battle," I replied. "Disaster is in the air."

"How can you even 'sense' trouble?" Harpy asked. "It's not like trouble is a literal thing floating around."

"You could say the same thing about aura," Jaqueline said.

"All right, everyone! Listen up!" The pokemon and humans alike turned their attention towards Brendan, who was walking back into the room with Eclipse and May. Mr. Clem stopped rubbing the flygon's head (to his greatest distress) and stood up, holding his back straight.

"I've learned that our best move right now is to move against Arvil before he even realizes that he's made enemies. And Eric knows what he's doing. According to him, Arceus gave him a briefing of what is to come."

"But who's Eric?" Leaf asked. Brendan pointed at Eclipse.

"That's his real name. 'Eclipse' was the name I gave him-"

Eric gave him a questioning yet threatening glance.

"S-since I didn't know that he was, in fact, a person."

"And why didn't he ever tell me his real name?" Harpy said angrily.

"For reasons," Eric replied.

I looked over at Mr. Clem, who was rubbing his chin in fascination at the unknown language that Eric was speaking. He was planning a little adventure for us. I just knew it.

"So, here's what's happening," Eric said. "Arvil doesn't have control over the PC systems yet. Yes, he can track people's poke balls with the help of his scientists and their signal interception technology. But he can't just hack into the PC.

"So he's going right to the source of the server, the poke ball factory in the Kalos region."

"So you're saying that's where we need to go to BLOW THE WHOLE FLIPPING THING UP?" Harpy asked hopefully.

Eric interpreted her speech to Brendan, who laughed out loud. "Tell Harpy 'exactly.'"

"No need for that," Eric said. "Pokemon can understand all human speech, not just battle commands."

Brendan shook his head. "And that makes no logical sense."

"That's pokemon for you," Leaf said. "It's not supposed to make sense."

I broke my attention off of the people speaking above me and beckoned Patriot over. He was the only pokemon that I could trust with secrets. Jaqueline was too sketchy, and Lenny could get peer-pressured into letting anything slip. I didn't even know Eric at this point, and Harpy...yeah.

"What?" he whispered.

"We're going to the factory," I said, "so we need a backup battle plan if Arvil's already there waiting for us."

"We can't really prepare for the inevitable."

"But we can. Remember Salad, the serperior? His trainer is a pokemon champion. If we have another player, then we'll have a much higher chance of success."

Patriot nodded. "Makes sense. But how are we going to get him into this mess? He won't be eager to join the death club over here."

 _"And_ we need to somehow get over to Unova and back without Brendan noticing," I said.

We chatted for a few minutes while the humans talked about "important things". We just couldn't find a way to get out of Brendan's sight. Thankfully my absol senses kicked in and I predicted someone bursting into the room in a few minutes. Sure enough, that was exactly what happened. A large unkempt man collapsed over the threshold out of breath.

"News about Alec," he groaned.

"Good," Mr. Clem said. "Where is he?"

"Infiltrators have given word that they're going to use him as bait to reach Brendan."

 _Why would Arvil think that Brendan is at all attached to this stranger?_ I thought. Then I saw Brendan's face bent in anger. _Hmm._

"I suspected that," I said. Jaqueline nodded in approval. She was probably also aware. I mean, using people as bait has to be the oldest trick in the book when it comes to those amazing T.V. shows. And it's always effective. The stranger continued.

"The Corruption will have a plane taking off the day after tomorrow, which will carry Arvil and something else towards Kalos."

"What is this...thing?" Clem asked.

"I don't know," the man said, "but there's a rumor among the infiltrators that it's a legendary pokemon."

Brendan, Leaf, Eric and May just stood there with wide eyes. Harpy, meanwhile, rolled her eyes. "Kyogre, seen it. Latias? Brendan freaking rides her. Leaf has Zapdos. What is there to be afraid of?"

"Harpy has a point, we can take whatever Arvil throws at us," Eric said.

"I doubt that. Everyone has their limits," Mr. Clem said. "I'm just a little worried for you kids' safety."

Everyone-including the stranger at the door-stopped and stared at him. He flushed red. "You know what? I don't own any of you. Take the matter to your parents for all I care. And I'm terribly sorry if any of you get seriously injured on this mission, or worse." With that, he retreated to the back of the room and sat behind his desk again, arms folded grimly.

"I'm just wondering why you wouldn't send other people for the job," May said exasperatedly.

"Didn't you hear me? It's up to you," Clem said.

"So if we don't go then you'll send other people," Brendan said.

"That's the ticket, kiddo."

I perked up when I saw Leaf tap Brendan on the shoulder. "Look, we are his best bet here. We are all legendary trainers, and we have stealth on our side. If he was to send other trainers to stop the overthrow of the factory, we wouldn't win the fight. Remember the scientists that were practically drowning their pokemon in steroids?"

"We could just bomb the factory and shut down the entire system," Brendan suggested.

 _Come on, you're smarter than that,_ I thought.

"We don't want to do that! We want to save the system, that's the whole point here!"

"I agree," May said. "Then I can get my pokemon back once Arvil is out of our lives once and for all."

"And there's the outnumber, just like I predicted," Jaqueline said.

"That was a no-brainer," Patriot said.

* * *

I looked over at my team. Patriot. Harpy. Jaqueline. Everyone. I just had to accept the fact that I might lose one or all of them if I was to agree to the mission. I might accept it, but I would definitely regret it for the rest of my life. But I had to put everything into perspective. May had already lost every member of her team to who knows where. I could do it.

I was surprised to see how formal Mr. Clem was with the assignment. He had us write our names down, which he then transferred to his laptop. Then he said that we had twenty-four hours to prepare ourselves mentally and physically. And to think that I had just won the Hoenn region championships only two days before. Mr. Clem had Leaf take us down the same hallway to small rooms where we could sleep for the night. Tomorrow: Day three of my story. The day after that? War.

* * *

 **Oh. My. Gosh. Help me ease my writer's block pain! SOMEONE! PLEASE! Also, standard procedure. R &R, etc. **

**-PatrioticSwellow**

 **P.S. Sheer cold is the worst move in the history of Pokemon. Lost the tiebreaker match because of it. I really wanted that shiny absol.**


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

(Which came early in honor of the end of school and my new writing club next year.)

Mom was going to be so ticked at me for going on even more adventures, especially after the Team Aqua incident. Actually, that may be a little too weak of a word. Maybe I would call it a "disaster." Yeah, and Harpy would agree with me wholeheartedly. These thoughts were running through my mind while I sat in the modest bed that Leaf showed me to. Not the four seasons at all. Well, I'd better sleep for the preparation tomorrow. I fell asleep with the crowd ball stuck to my sweaty hands.

* * *

"Up an' ADAMS!"

I opened my eyes. May was yelling though my door.

 _Huh, I don't remember locking it..._

I stood up, and the crowd ball rolled off my stomach and onto the floor.

"All right. Coming!"

There were no windows in the room. I thought that it was quite genius for Mr. Clem to have his headquarters underground...in Shoal Cave. It was even better placed than Arvil's fortress underneath Mauville City.

I stood up, and wallah! There stood the refrigerator next to the door. Oh please let there be milk-something that I could consume by the gallons. I opened it to find ice cream, milk, hard boiled eggs, and bread. Oh, I was so wrong yesterday to think that this dingy room was useless after all. The knock came again.

"Are you coming?"

"Kinda?" I replied. "Just grabbing some food!"

"Well, hurry up, because I want to show you something!"

I went to the small kitchenette and threw together some cereal and toast. A few minutes later I walked outside where May was standing with her Dexnav.

"Do you know what's weird?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"No reception at all. The hallways must have some kind of metal in them."

"Interesting. How could metal stop signals?" I asked.

"I just know from the physics course I took a few years ago."

"You went to school?" I said incredulously.

"Don't you remember? I had school while you were challenging the Elite Four."

I scratched my head. "It was only a month course, right?"

"Yeah. Anyways, I wanted to show you something cool. Just follow me."

I quickly ran back inside my room to grab the crowd ball from beneath my bed. Then I followed her through the small hallway. It was the only hallway of the underground headquarters with almost twenty branching rooms coming off of it. She took me to the side closest to the entrance and made a turn to the right on the door with the number "one" on it.

For a second, my heart dropped to the floor when I saw what was inside. I held back a yelp as I saw pokemon decking it out for their very lives.

"What's going on?" I asked. May laughed at my anxiety.

"Calm down, it's just a training room! No one is trying to kill each other. Come on, there's something else in the back."

She led me to the back side of the large gym with a swimming pool and what was probably the world largest sandbox. "That's pretty cool."

I watched some furrets playing tag-shooting up and down the holes that they dug at a fast pace. "Lenny would love that."

"Let your pokemon out, then," May said.

"Come on out!" I shouted, letting my crowd ball fly. The five pokemon flashed into existence simultaneously. Each one panicked for a couple seconds before they saw me smiling and nodding my head. "It's all right! This is prep. day for the trip to Kalos tomorrow. Battle, explore, or do whatever you want. The time is now yours."

We located some benches a safe distance away from the tumult of attacks that were flying. Once we were sitting, May turned to me and laughed. "You sounded like a P.E. coach."

"I guess I did. I'm not like that all the time. I wanted to let my pokemon get the feel of battle."

"Look. There goes Glade and Patriot," May said. "They're walking out the door."

 _Interesting._

"They're my most trustworthy partners. I'm sure they aren't up to no good." I said assuredly.

We sat there silently for a while. My eyes widened when I felt her hand slip into mine.

 _How can I not make this awkward? Arceus, help me!_

No response.

"Some date, huh?" I said. _Wat da crabs._

"Yeah."

"Where's Eric and Leaf?"

Before she could answer, I could see it walking into the gym. They were together. Holding hands.  
"Hi!" Leaf called. They waved back at us. I was amazed to see Eric completely at ease despite the fact that he was about as sociable as an artichoke.

They walked over and sat in the bench next to us. I perked my ears to find out what they were talking about.

"I want to show you something," Eric was saying.

"Okay..." Leaf said.

He stood up and walked into the middle of the battlefield. About fifty pokemon stopped hurling attacks and watched him with concern.

"It's all right! Keep going!"

They stood watching him. Eric decided that he wasn't going to convince them to continue, so he walked back down to his bench. May also looked over to where Leaf was.

"What was that about?" Leaf asked. "You could've gotten seriously injured!"

"Not really," Eric said. "Just because I'm not an umbreon anymore, it doesn't mean that I don't have my old abilities."

We all stared at him. If what he said was true, then we had a real superhuman fighting alongside us. I wondered if N was also like that...

"How do you know?" May asked.

"Because Arceus told me," he replied."

"I wouldn't trust him," I said. _That murderer._

"You said you wouldn't draw any conclusions!" May said.

"I didn't. But I can be careful."

"I don't think you really-"

"Lenny, are you alright?" I called. He had toppled to a massive hydro pump from an opposing rotom and fell into the swimming pool. It was pretty funny to watch, but I kept my face serious while he climbed back out. He held up a thumb to show that he was fine.

* * *

"Glade, how in the world are we going to get past that door?" Patriot asked.

"I don't know. You can probably pass straight through it," I said.

"Probably, but I don't want to."

I walked up to the door and tapped it with the blade. No presence on the other side.

"Where is this HQ anyways?" the bird asked.

"Ask Harpy," I said. "She said she knew."

"I did, but she was being a butt."

"Mmhmm."

I spun around. A man had opened the door to my left and proceeded to walk down to the opposite side of the hall. I ran up to him, making my erie absol cries.

"Woah, buddy!" he said. "Your name's Glade, right?"

I nodded. Finally, an informed human.

He quickly got the message that I wanted to take him somewhere. "Alright, show me what's up."

I led him to the door where Patriot sat expectantly. I scratched at the exit with my front claws.

"I see," the man said. "Well, you're in luck. I have the key right here." With that, he held his set of car keys in front of the door, which had a magnetic key dangling off the ring. The latch clicked and the large heavy door opened.

"Thank you," I said, even though he couldn't understand a thing.

"No problem. And by Arceus, don't reveal our location!"

Patriot and I shot out before it dawned on him that we weren't supposed to be leaving. I guess he thought that everything we did was authorized by the champion.

* * *

 **I am the rushiest story rusher ever. Probably not though. And I think I robbed the readers a little bit with how easily the two escaped. I might come back one day and fix that. Meanwhile, I'm going to perfect my new pokemon team in Sun. Those mimkyus and celesteelas don't let up easily, and I don't like having OU 'mons on my team.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

After an hour of watching my pokemon goof off, I said goodbye to them and wandered the somewhat large hallway. Then I came face-to-face with Mr. Clem.

"I need to talk to you for a minute," he said. I nodded and he brought me back into his office.

"What is it?" I said, curious. He sat down at his desk with the many file cabinets lining the walls behind him. He ushered me into a crude chair on the other side. He folded his arms, and began.

"I just need to fill you in on what's happening. I wanted to bring the whole group together again, but the last time I tried that was difficult. Interruption after interruption. So I just wanted to fill you in so you could pass this information to the others."

"Okay," I said.

"So, I bet you haven't ever heard the name of Arvil's... I wouldn't say government, but organization. That's because he doesn't even have an official name inside or outside his group of followers with the promise of money. Also, this may not seem important right now, but do you know what a government is?"

I took a jab at it. "Um, the people who run a country or region?"

Clem laughed. "That's what most people think too. But that's just the basic knowledge. If you looked inside the Webster's Spinerak dictionary, you would find a few extra facts about government."

I wondered where he was going with this as he reached under his desk and pulled out the biggest book that I've ever seen. He ruffled through the pages until he reached the letter G.

"Er-hem. Noun. 'The exercise of authority; direction and restraint exercised over the actions of men in communities, societies or states; the administration of public affairs.'"

I nodded off in my chair in almost record time. "Interesting..."

"You have to pay attention, this is important," Mr. Clem said angrily. "This is why the region fell under oppression so quickly. No one is getting educated when they're sleeping."

I shot back up in my seat. "I remember you saying that government exercises authority over the people, and that it controls the actions of men...and women."

Clem relaxed. "At least you got most of it. Listen, the dictionary forgot to mention the fact that governments exist to serve the people who work under it. Unfortunately, bad governments exist which takes advantage of the people.

"So, where do you think Hoenn's government lies, because It's not with Arvil."

It didn't take me long to think of an answer. "The Cloud Cover?"

Clem shook his head. "No. We're too poor to govern. In fact, no one actually knows who manages the laws of the land at the top of the pyramid, with the cops at the bottom. That's another reason for the CC's existance-we want to discover who's working behind the curtain."

"But first thing's first, right?" I said.

"Yes. Arvil first. Government later. Back to Arvil's doings at this very moment. His jet, according to spies, is set to leave tomorrow morning, so be sure to get to bed at a reasonable hour."

I nodded. "Is there anything that I need to bring?"

"Your pokemon, and a quick wit. I truly am sorry, but you are the best hope that the Cloud Cover has."

"How come you managed to get this far without my help?"

"Most of the fighting was technical. It was never pokemon versus pokemon. But things are picking up around here."

"All right. I'll be ready."

"By the way, how is Eclipse doing?" Mr. Clem asked. "Has he recovered from the shock?"

"More than recovered," I replied. "Found himself some new friends."

"Good. You can go if you want. Or you could check out my little stack of bookshelves right here." He pointed towards the opposite side of the room where the door was. Next to it stood several bookshelves that barely cleared the five foot mark. They looked a bit interesting, so I headed over in that direction. The older looking books weren't about pokemon at all and covered more about the philisophical side of life. There were some about war strategy-both old and new.

I pulled some of the books out and looked at their titles. _The Art of War. The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth. Mewtwo Psystrikes Back._ And, last but not least, _That Glaceon._

"These look interesting," I said to Mr. Clem. He looked up from the papers strewn about his desk.

"I'm glad. Go ahead and take any of the books you like. I would recommend the one about attack strategy. It's called 'The Art of War,' and it will teach you a lot about the ancient arts."

I thanked him for his recommendation. I opened my backpack and threw five books inside. I tipped my head towards the desk and walked out. I made my way back to the training room but couldn't find anyone there (not including my pokemon). It was only noon, where could they have gone?

 _ **They be at lunch, you imbecile.**_

My conscience was giving me a hard time again, but it was nothing to complain about. It only made me sharper. I found Lenny and Harpy knocked out by the sandbox. Patriot and Glade were the only once I couldn't find. After a few minutes of looking past the socializing butterfrees and pachirisus, I confirmed that they weren't here.

 _Well, maybe I'll see them later._

A few minutes later, I found myself in Eric's suite with the rest of my friends.

"These sandwiches are amazing," May was saying as I walked in.

"Hey guys," I said.

"Hey," Leaf said.

"Nice day," Eric said, trying to be conversational. I grabbed a unfezant sandwich from the center of the wooden table and dug in.

"Yes it is. A real nice day," May agreed.

"Yep," I said.

My pronouncement was met with a few minutes of silence besides the sound of chewing. Eric broke it-thankfully.

"Er...What is our battle plan for tomorrow?"

* * *

 **Yes it was short, in a rush, bye.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

It was awkward carrying Glade in my talons. It wasn't a problem with weight-just size. After 10 minutes of carrying him, I said, "Okay, I'm done."

He looked up at me. "Why? Am I too heavy?"

"No," I replied. "But I can't get a firm grip on your back. And I don't want to drop you."

"I can run pretty quickly-just no where as fast as your flight."

"Let's do that," I said.

So we landed on top of a house that seemed to be perched in...trees? _Oh that's right! This is actually one of my favorite cities!_

"We're in Fortree City," I said.

We leapt down to the forest floor behind the treehouses. It was getting dark and I didn't have night vision like Glade or Eclipse did.

 _I wonder if Eric's new form still lets him see in the dark. Gonna have to ask later._

"l'll be your eyes," Glade said as if he could hear my thoughts.

"Let's go," I said. So we went.

A few hours later, the two of us stood in front of the wide ocean. Unova was going to be quite the stretch for me with Glade almost ready to fall off. My talons barely could grip his fur.

"Ready?" he said breathlessly. The sun was sinking fast and we didn't have much time to waste. The trip to Kalos was tomorrow morning, and we had to somehow get Nathan into the Resistance before then. I nodded to Glade. Then took off at full throttle with him holding on for life's sake.

* * *

It was bedtime again, and I still had no idea where those two went. Why now? Why? I had only three pokemon now. In other words, the attack on the factory tomorrow will end as a complete disaster. I was dead meat. May knocked on my door. I set down my toothbrush and opened it.

"Hello," I said warily.

"Hi," she said.

"So what's up?"

"Mr. Clem let me take some of the pokemon in the excersise room. You should also go down there to find one to replace Eric."

"You mean three," I said grimly. "Glade and Patriot are gone."

May's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"They're gone as in they went off somewhere."

"That's horrible. Where do you think they've gone?"

"Back home, maybe? But that wouldn't be reasonable since they're my most loyal pokemon. Maybe they went to face off with Arvil on their own."

"We'd better hurry up and pick out some pokemon for you then."

So we walked down to the battle room. No people were in sight other than us two. I walked over to the pool and looked in. It was so deep that it was hard to see the bottom with the ripples distorting the image, but I was sure that something was watching me.

"Hello there..."

It jumped out and flopped onto the floor with a loud SMACK!

"What the crap is that thing?" May said.

I pulled out my Dexnav and opened the Pokedex app. I typed in the color category and some specifics of its appearanece. Then I read the resulting page out loud.

"'Toxapex crawls along the ocean floor on its 12 legs. It leaves a trail of Corsola bits scattered in its wake. Additionally, those attacked by Toxapex's poison will suffer intense pain for three days and three nights. Post-recovery, there will be some aftereffects.'" I looked up. "Brutal. Perfect for tomorrow's battle."

The toxapex looked up at me from underneath its pointy umbrella-shaped flesh. I saw eyes peer out and smile.

"It doesn't seem all that mean," I said. Then I turned back. "Would you like to join my team?" I asked it. Immediately the toxapex moved slowly towards the water and jumped back in.

"That's its maximum speed I think," May said. "You might want to pick a different pokemon."

I called out to the toxapex. "You can come back out! It's all right!" That's when I learned about the fact that it could shoot the spikes from its body like a sharpshooting ariados. It barely impaled me in the face as I jumped out of the way. Now, that was fast.

"Yes, I want it," I said. "The team needs to be diverse like this."

May shook her head. "And what makes you think that it'll listen to you?"

"Because I am a good trainer." And with that conclusion, I threw a pokeball at it. It was a critical capture, too. With that luck, my friends and I might have a chance against Arvil tomorrow.

"You need two more, just in case," May said.

"Right." I looked about. There were only about fifty pokemon in the entire gym, and I didn't like many of the ones that I saw. Many of them resembled inanimate objects, which I wasn't much of a "fan" of, if Arceus knew what I meant.

 ** _Rotom. HAHA, I see what you did there!_**

Again with that hilarious echoing voice. I must've been going insane.

"Find any?" May asked casually, kicking at the ground with her foot. "I'm getting tired."

"No," I groaned. "I'm seeing way too many ice cream cones and washing machines."

I almost laughed when I saw the rotom put on the saddest face and start floating away.

 ** _Okay, that's just cruel._**

"Hey, isn't that Chloe?"

May looked up. "Who is Chloe?"

"Yeah, I said. Chloe is Leaf's swellow. Wonder if she's bringing her on the mission. CHLOE! Come on down!"

The swellow quit gliding around and gracefully landed in front of us. Her uniquely green feathers almost sparkled. She tilted her head questioningly.

"Is Leaf using you for the attack tomorrow?"

She shook her head.

"I guess Leaf has bette-I mean stronger pokemon to use tomorrow. She has no competition with legendaries," May observed. I saw the near slip-up and laughed. Unfortunately, Chloe took offense and flew away.

"Never mind," May said. Suddenly, the rotom from earlier appeared right in front of my face, nearly knocking out my lunch. And it no longer looked like a washing machine. It wasn't posessing anything, which was my favorite form.

"You look great," I said. The rotom laughed and zoomed about the room at the literal speed of lightning. "Would you like to join my team?"

It nodded by bobbing up and down excitedly, and flew into my bag without even opening it. "Just don't screw up my 'Nav!"

"Real shame," May laughed. "That'll be a couple of bucks."

I checked my bag but didn't see the rotom. Maybe it had already entered a ball. I looked around and quickly caught a lycanroc, becuase May said that they were extremely rare in Hoenn and very loyal. Then, I noticed the toxapex that was slowly creeping towards me the whole time.

"Did you decide to join me, little buddy?" I asked. Then it fired off its main spike that was resting on top of its head. I swear it gave me a haircut.

 _I better teach this thing a lesson._ So I threw a quick ball and caught it...quickly.

"And that makes three new pokemon," I said. And if Patriot and Glade come back in time, I'll have eight."

"You mean 'when' Patriot and Glade come back, right?"

"Absolutely. _When_ they come back."

Together we walked to her "suite" and I kissed her goodnight. Then I walked back to my room and got down in bed without brushing my teeth. As I laid there, I had a thought. Could Eric tell me more about Arceus?

 _Maybe, maybe not,_ I thought as I walked through the dim hallways to go find him.

* * *

 **I will try to be quick with the story scrubbing. I just need to make sure that I am keeping track of the time of day withing the chapters. I honestly haven't been keeping track of anything and was writing like I didn't need to write out a REAL story structure on paper.**

 **(As a time capsule, this chapter was written on the day that Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon were announced on Pokemon Direct)**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

"I...I can't hold on for much longer," I groaned. "You're slipping."

"Yeah, I know," Glade said. "And yet, you can still hold on."

"No I can't. I know I said that a moment ago, but now it's serious. I'm going to drop you."

Unova was in sight-barely. At least we were close enough for Glade to swim the rest of the way. And that, my friends, is why either Harpy, Latias, or Lenny did this job. Wait a freaking minute. Latias! I could be able to call her. Or, on the other hand, I could drop Glade in the ocean with the sharpedos.

"Help!"

I looked down to see him treading the frigid water. Why did this have to happen to me? Why?

"Hold on!" I cried, and plummeted to get him. As I was searching for some hair to grasp on to, an abnormally large wave came over us and pushed us both beneath the surface. I held my breath and tried to "fly" under water, much like an empoleon or delibird. It sort of worked, but I wasn't moving fast enough to beat the power of the powerful currents that existed below.

My heart was failing. Or, that's what I thought the pain in my chest felt like. Glade was actually above me. I had jumped in to kill myself. Then came the sharpedos. Five of them started circling us like a flock of mandibuzz. I thrashed even faster and finally broke the surface to catch as much breath as I possibly could.

 _This is it, we're done for._

 _ **I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what to do. Making you invisible and odorless is a tall order! I...cant do it.**_

Glade motioned towards shore. "I have an idea! Get on my back!"

"Yes, Mr. Lycanroc!" I shouted.

 _ **Haha! I get it! How can you make such hilarious jokes under immense pressure?**_

I perched myself right behind Glade's head, and from that position, I understood what he wanted me to do. I held out my soggy wings and began to beat them as hard as I possibly could. Glade screamed out.

"The sharpedo! Got my leg! Fly us out of here! PLEASE!"

I flapped harder, but I couldn't get us off the ground. We moved towards Unova at the speed of a jetski, however, which was good. Glade literally screamed the whole way until we slammed into the one of the many docks that littered the perimeter of Castelia City. For some reason, I blacked out right there. It was most likely from heat exhaustion.

* * *

Eric stood up from his bed and walked up to me. "I see. So you want to learn more about Mount Pyre. Arceus never told me that he killed your swampert to make me a replacement. I just thought that he randomly picked me to fill that empty spot in your team."

I nodded. He was telling the truth, I knew that much. Even though he didn't know much about Arceus's intentions, it would've been worse if he had just lied.

"Hey, I know that this may come off weird, but hear me out."

"I'm listening," I said.

"Okay, so I've been hearing some voice in my head-"

"YES!" I said. "So you've been hearing it too?"

Eric nodded. "Probably much more often than you, though. It's Arceus talking. And he's helping us fight against Arvil."

My eyes narrowed, searching Eric's face. "Are you sure? He could be bad. In fact, I know he's bad. Otherwise, he would have already blasted every single evil person in the world to smithereens."

Eric shook his head. I swore that if he corrected me one more time, I would have a gardevior create a miniature black hole and suck him in for good.

"The Hall of Origin is so far away from Earth that Arceus has only a small influence. Even traveling at the speed of light would take years for him to get here and personally take care of them."

I shook my head in disgust. "How convenient!"

Eric cracked a smile. "I know."

I uncrossed my legs and stood up. "Well, I guess I'll be going. Good luck tomorrow."

He waved me out the door. "Good luck."

I was about to shut it, but he had one more thing to show me before I left. He unclasped the belt that was attached to his waist. _Oh!_

"That's right, Brendan. I'm now a pokemon trainer. You better watch out, because once we take Arvil out, I'll come for you next."

 _Oh yes. A challenger. How ironic that one of my own pokemon turned out to be a human who is eventually going to be a major competitor._

"I like how you said 'once we take Arvil out,'" I said. "It makes me hopeful."

He looked me directly in the eyes. "Don't say that you're hopeful. Say that you're grateful. Even if we all die tomorrow, or get imprisoned, or whatever may happen, you will always have me as your friend."

I wasn't a crybaby, and even if I was, I wasn't about to show it. "Okay."

I walked out the door feeling like victory was in reach.

* * *

Arvil was in a terrible mood. He was considering rescheduling his flight to Kalos due to the fact that there was some kind of hidden mutiny within his ranks. What was he doing wrong? Wasn't he paying his admins and grunts enough already? Nero was going to be ticked off if he didn't hurry up with the PC hacking mission.

Since the server was located at the poke ball factory only (no where else), he would have to physically go there himself. He would've sent Beatrice to fulfill the task a few days ago, but now he didn't trust anyone due to the fiasco that happened very recently.

"Is the cargo ready to go?" he asked the nearest grunt with a clipboard.

"Almost, sir. Lunala is caged and already with the cargo in the plane."

"Good. Let me double-check who the pilot is." He looked at the names of the flight attendants. "Seems good. Notify the pilots to fuel up and be ready to fly in an hour."

The grunt's face paled for a split second, but that look passed quickly. "Y-yes sir."

Once Arvil had gone off somewhere else, the grunt held up the small hidden communicator attached to his right forearm. From a distance, it looked like he was dabbing or something weird like that.

"Mr. C. Bad news. For unknown reasons Arvil decided to leave for Kalos twelve hours earlier than anticipated."

A burst of curse words came from the opposite end.

"You're going to wake the kids up, aren't you?"

"Yes. They're going to be upset. Hopefully they got all of the energy they needed from those three hours of sleep. The time to act is now, Sammy. Stand by at Arvil's headquarters."

"You got it," the spy said. The line broke, leaving Samuel alone in his thoughts. He watched his fellow grunts walk in different directions down the hallway on various assignments. He wondered how many of them actually thought that what they were doing was right. He guessed that it was about half. He was more accurate than he knew.

* * *

 **The story is almost ready to come to a close. There is probably five to 10 chapters remaining, so bear with my slow updates. You will see why Lunala is getting special treatment from Arvil pretty soon. Also, Nero is someone you'll learn more about in book two. Yes there is a book two. Thank you for reading, and you're welcome.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	36. Chapter 36

PART THREE

* * *

Chapter 36

"Get up!"

I was roughly shaken out of bed and was plopped onto my feet. It was Eric. I ignored the fact that he actually glowed in the dark a little bit because of the urgency in his eyes.

"What?!"

"We have to go now," he said. "And yes, I know it's three in the morning, but Arvil's plane has taken off."

I cursed my bad luck and followed Eric's bolting movements out the door and towards the exit of the facility. Everyone else was there, including Mr. Clem and several of his assistants in uniform.

"Oh, good, everyone's here," he said. "You all have your flying pokemon?"

I nodded along with everyone else.

"Very good. Jax, open the door. Use the remote to activate the CCM."

The man next to me pulled out a tablet of some sort and pushed some buttons on the lit surface. "You're all set to go," he reported.

Those who are going on this mission, please gather around," Mr. Clem said.

We formed a circle-much like the ones found at sport tournaments. He spoke quickly and vague to get his point across in the shortest amount of time possible.

"Leaf, I'm putting you in charge of this mission. Look out for your friends, and try not to get killed."

Leaf nodded solemnly. Then he turned to me. "Take this." He held out his hand to reveal a small rectangle that resembled a dexnav.

"This is a GPS. It has your coordinates as well as the destination already set on it. Get yourselves over there, and blow the entire thing up. This would be illegal in normal circumstances, but we can deal with those issues either.

"If you ever come into contact with the Corruption, don't fight them unless they have you cornered. You understand?"

I nodded. My heart pumped my blood even faster. It felt like I was about to go off the world's largest drop of a roller coaster. Then the latch opened. My body was on full alert now. Eric looked like a tightly strung violin, and I was sure that the same expression showed on my face. I brought Harpy out, and followed Leaf's zapdos out into the cool night sky.

A sharp cry pierced the air behind me. I looked back. A silhouette of an areodactyl caught up to me with Eric as its rider.

"Very nice!" I called over the wind.

"Harpy, you're as terrifying as ever!" Eric called back. I patted her sharp comb of hair carefully. Her predatory cry pierced my ears. Zapdos called back in a similar voice, and the staraptor and areodactyl fell into a V-shaped formation behind him. As for May, she had Latias that I had called down with the Eon Flute for her to borrow. She didn't have any flying types on her new team.

Zapdos communicated with Harpy again. She flew faster until we caught up to Leaf.

"I need the coordinates!" she called.

 _Man, why does moving air have to be so LOUD?_

I steadied my staraptor, then risked reaching my right hand into my pocket. I got the GPS and pointed us in the right direction.

"The course is now set to Kalos!"

"Hopefully we can beat a freaking airplane," I said to myself.

 _ **Me too, man.**_

* * *

Ah, the streets of Unova. Nothing better than crawling out of the ocean and dragging our butts across the most busy street to find a Pokemon Center. There was an audible gasp as I half-flew and half-dragged Glade through the doors.

"We'll take care of it right away," the nurse said.

I waited on top of the public tables, where I attracted a lot of attention from the waiting trainers.

"That's the champion's swellow, isn't it...?"

"You're right!"

Finally a small girl (who didn't know what fear meant) walked up and stroked my back gently.

"You're a nice birdie, aren't ya?"

I sang sweetly. Some more people approached once they realized that the coast was clear.

"Are you Patriot?" a teenager asked. I nodded.

"Oh wow! Then where's Brendan?"

I shook my head.

"So you don't know... I could call the PokeControl to get you back to him."

I shook my head no vigorously. He held up his hands in surrender. "Hey, it was just a suggestion."

The sound of camera shutters snapping filled the room. When the human's famous, the mon's famous, I guess.

"Swellow!" a female voice called out. It came from the front desk.

I took off from the table, scattering magazines in the process. Once I reached the counter, she looked at me carefully.

"I think I know you from somewhere," she said. I shook my head in warning. She got the cue and reached back to type a quick note on her PC. She turned back and gave me a warm smile. "You must be in a hurry. Here's the absol."

She pushed part of the counter out as if it was on hinges. Oh wait, it was. Glade walked back out with his leg as good as new.

"Thank Arceus," he said to me.

As we turned to leave the building, I noticed that the number of people had increased immensely since I had first gone in. We were definitely attracting a lot of attention.

"We'd better get out of here," Glade said worriedly.

"Yes, let's."

The automatic door of the Pokemon Center opened once again before I could even leave the floor. Lo and behold, in walked Nathan - the champion of the Unova region.

 _ **You have me to thank for this. I am the king of deus ex machina.**_

"Just the person we needed," I called out.

Then, for some reason, the entire center fell silent. Not only that, but no one was moving either. The champion's eyes fell on me, and his eyes lit up in understanding. He walked up to me and knelt down.

"I know you," he said. I nodded vigorously.

 _Okay, now let's play a game of scheraids._

"You want me to help you," he said. I exchanged a relieved glance with the absol next to me; I thought that it would take all night, but this guy was too smart for that.

"Brendan's in trouble and you want to take me with you," he said.

"Okay, now I'm getting worried," I whispered Glade. "It looks like he already knew this stuff long before we got here...almost like someone told him."

"Or maybe he's just smart," Glade said back. "I can read facial expressions fairly well. He's concerned for us."

 ** _Or maybe I just told him everything,_ ** the voice said. Glade and I jolted simultaneously when we heard what the masculine voice said.

 _ **Now, that's enough waiting, Brendan is already headed to Kalos as I speak. Pack up and go.**_

"Well, you heard the llama god," Nathan said to us. "Let's get moving."

* * *

 **More like I'M the king of deus ex machina. And I apologize. Yes, there's going to be disappointing things in this fanfiction that I can't prevent very well (unless I planned this entire book before I started writing, that is). Please point out the grammatical errors and the plot loopholes if there are any. Because seriously, at this point, I bet there are some hidden around here somewhere.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The sun was rising. Even though it was probably the most beautiful dawn ever recorded in my book, I felt the lead in my stomach grow constantly heavier. Harpy looked up at me for reassurance, and I smiled worriedly.

Not having Patriot and Glade with us was turning out to be a major blow to my self - confidence, which wasn't good at all considering what all of us were about to attempt. At least the wind felt really good.

"Land ahead!" Leaf called.

I quickly focused my eyes on the landscape that arose in front of me, which slowly lit up from the sun creeping even higher on the horizon. The Kalos region in all of its glory.

"Brendan, take the GPS," Leaf said. I leaned to the left and put my hand out to take it without getting slashed by Zapdos's wings. Once I had it safely in my hand, I looked at the small map on the display.

"Okay, head north-east!" I said. So we did.

"Do you remember the plan?" Leaf asked us all.

"Yes," Eric said confidently. "We're going to scout out the factory for Arvil, and if we made it there first, then we go inside and take the access codes for the database."

I must have missed something that Mr. Clem said. "What?"

Eric looked at me like I was crazy. "Remember the flash drive that he gave me?"

"No."

He held it up for me to see. "There's written directions on the back." I shook my head at his pronouncement.

"And what are we going to do if he's already there?" I asked.

"Then we attack and take the code anyways."

Three minutes later, I could see a large complex situated to the north of what looked like a fairy village.

Suddenly, the GPS made a beeping noise just loud enough for me to hear. I looked at the screen with a small message on it like I had just received a text. It read:

GET OUT OF THERE.

* * *

Very bad things were unfolding for the Cloud Cover. Very bad things indeed. And Mr. Clem had already sent out some people to find N, the king of Team Plasma from not too long ago. Not for any specific reason important to the currently larger problems at hand.

"Ricks, do you have the plane ready?" Clem said into his radio.

"The backside of the cliff is ready to open," Ricks replied. "We are loading it with several projectiles in case something goes wrong."

Mr. Clem shuddered at the thought of ever using them in a civilian area. Hopefully it would never come to that.

"All right," Clem answered. "I'll be at the runway as soon as possible."

In a moment, Mr. Clem opened a door to reveal a small plane that didn't look like it was about to go to war. It looked like a passenger airliner with no clear openings for the projectiles to launch. Nobody (including the kids) knew that the CC even owned an airplane, which was kind of bad, now that Clem thought about it. At least the part about the kids.

Clem saluted the pilot, then moved into the back. If there actually were seats in the plane, then it only would've been able to hold about fifteen passengers. But the only seats available were the two that were pushed up against a small table in the middle of the room. There were only a few windows, and the walls were covered with screens. One was showing the reports by Mauville T.V.

Another screen looked like someone attached a GoPro to a swanna. Several showed Mauville City from Mount Chimney's point of view. The rest of the screens were connected to computers, all monitoring the current situation. Mr. Clem sat down next to a few attendants. They were well coordinated and trained in the arts of pokemon battles.

"Hello sir," one of them said.

"How are you?" Clem returned.

"Not too great. What's Brendan's status?"

Mr. Clem shook his head. "Of course Alec knew they were following him. He has infiltrators somewhere nearby."

"But they don't know where the headquarters is, right?"

"I'm certain they don't, but they have ears in Mauville city. You can imagine how easy it is for things to slip."

"What's the battle plan?" the man asked.

"Go in. Get the kids. Get out of there. Hopefully we don't have to resort to violence to get Arvil to comply with us if he manages to reach them before we do."

"Arvil is at the factory already sir. We don't stand a chance," the man said in despair.

"We can only hope that we make it in time."

The silence wasn't long at all between Mr. Clem and the three men sitting next to him. A shout rang out from the cockpit of the plane.

Mr. Clem-being the old man he was-couldn't stand up immediately. The other men were already up and returned to their boss with news.

"Look! Look at the screen!"

Clem looked, and paled. Almost every single screen focused on or near the poke ball factory was orange. It was on fire.

* * *

Now I could see why my master was given the order to "Get out of there" as fast as we could. I didn't know if he could see it yet, but there was a flaming ball of fire engulfing the factory below. Ten seconds later, my question was answered.

"Well, I see the problem," Brendan yelled. The sun was completely up so we had to get out of plain sight. From whose we didn't know.

"Turn around!" May shouted.

We all agreed and made a u-turn back in the opposite direction. We spotted a nearby forest next to a ginormous building; it looked like a castle. Brendan fell off my back and fell into the damp morning leaves. The other humans followed suit for some reason.

"Well, that was bizzare," Zapdos said.

"It looks like someone got to the factory before we did," I said brightly.

"No, duh," Zapdos laughed.

Master was having a similar conversation with Leaf, May, and Eric.

"Now what?" May said.

"We could try to sneak up on the factory," Eric offered.

"That would be stupid," Zapdos said. "Arvil already knows that we're here. We'd be murdered before we can learn anything for the CC."

Eric translated. May looked impressed. "Who needs N when we have him?"

Suddenly, the GPS in Brendan's pocket beeped. He pulled it out and saw the new message on it.

"'The resistance plane is coming to get you. Stand by. Oh, and keep out of sight.'"

"Fair enough," Leaf said. She turned and began sifting through the moldy leaves.

"I see where she's going with this," Brendan said. He began digging his own hole. Eric and May followed suit. Meanwhile, I just stood there watching them. I called out softly to my master.

"What should I do?"

Eric didn't need to translate. Brendan pointed towards the sky. "Stay close to the trees. Look for the airplane."

I nodded and took off. I squinted my eyes once I was out of the shadow of the many trees surrounding me. I wasn't high enough to see anything excluding the castle-like structure less than a mile away. And there wasn't a airplane in sight. I wasn't satisfied with that, however.

I climbed a little higher. The road leading up to the castle wasn't busy at all. Every now and then, a car drove up to the parking lot on the furthest side. I dropped back down and shook my head.

"No airplanes."

It was funny that it took me almost ten seconds to realize that I couldn't see anyone. They had disappeared at a speed that David Copperfield would have a hard time topping.

 _Where have they gone?_

 _ **I suggest that you go above the trees this time.**_

Whatever spoke to me was clearly not a made up conscience; I'm not smart enough to hallucinate. So I followed the advice and flew above the trees this time. I saw the problem almost instantly. Zapdos and May's flight pokemon were gone. People wearing dark apparel were dragging my friends towards the direction of a van parked next to the road leading up to the castle.

 _It seems the Shadow Triad has grown in size,_ I thought grimly. Eric had told us more about them in greater detail. They were fierce, and had the uncanny ability to teleport themselves about. And apparently, they couldn't take others on their warped travels. Thank the legendaries for that limitation.

 _ **Be very careful,**_ the voice warned me. I nodded and began to follow the one dragging Brendan with a dart in his left arm.

 _ **Stop! Fly away! They're going to see you!**_

So the next ten seconds were a complete mess. I became a member of the one-man-band, flapping upwards as fast and as loudly as I could. Unfortunately, darts can shoot faster than I could fly. Man, were we screwed.

* * *

 **I'm on vacation in California. I plan to write two more chapters before I get back.**

 **I know I commented on my own chapter, but now I fixed the issue.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	38. MAJOR HIATUS

**MAJOR HIATUS**

* * *

So, I am faced with some options. One: Rewrite the story for better quality. Two: Have a major story overhaul and plan out how to fill the loose ends I've created for the last 37 chapters. Three: Take a break due to the fact that my tablet broke today. I'm feeling pretty low right now since chapter 38 was almost complete when it blew up on me. So I'll probably take the third action then choose between the first two later. Thanks for the understanding. I'm going to shiny hunt for a male taillow since I already have three shiny female ones. I'm not being sexist, I just want a male one. That's all.

* * *

 **UPDATE: Shiny taillow found. Next chapter comes out today. BTW, I found the taillow a long time ago but finally broke through the laziness and wrote this down. Also, I made some huge changes to chapter one since I could see why it would be very boring. I will also take the time to make fixes to chapter two-ten, since they all seemed short.**

-PatrioticSwellow


	39. Chapter 38

Chapter 38

 **Rewritten version of the one on my destroyed tablet**

 **Old chapter was also destroyed in case if you're wondering**

I woke up to the feeling of a needle in the small of my back. I tried reaching back to see what it was-even though I had the general idea. Sadly for me, my hands were cuffed together. I looked to my left. Leaf was chained to the wall of the van on my left while May was chained to my right. I stared into Eric's eyes on the opposite side.

"Don't struggle," he mouthed. I shook my head and started pulling on the metal. The harder I pulled, the tighter the cuffs dug into my skin. When I gave up, there was blood rolling down both my arms.

"I'll tell you the name of Arvil's organization if you obey my next commands."

I looked up. A "Team Arvil grunt" stood before me, smiling.

"And what are your commands?" I asked.

"Step in here." He held up a gray poke ball.

I just stared at him. "That's a heavy ball."

He laughed. "No. The creators just call it the human ball."

Eric glared at me from between the man's legs. _No._

"No deal," I said, because it was obvious what the poke ball's function was. "What would you do if I said yes?"

"If I told you, then you wouldn't agree...probably."

"I want to know."

"Fine. I would deposit you into the PC to see if you could live through such an experience."

I shook my head. "You can't make me do anything."

The man smiled. I expected to see yellow teeth but was disappointed. "If you know anything about a normal poke ball, then you'll know full well that I can catch you right now."

* * *

I watched with tears rolling down my cheeks. Why did life start sucking so bad? Brendan was now in the ball with that awful man, and I couldn't do anything about it. Eric looked at me, like he was trying to tell me something. I glanced at Leaf, who also seemed to know what was going on. I couldn't get the message because then the man got in my face.

"You like Brendan, don't ya?"

 _Now is the time to act-literally._

"N-no. He works alongside me with the resistance. You see, I was instructed to watch him day and night to make sure that he doesn't get cornered by trash like you," I spat.

The man got in even closer, making me very uncomfortable. "Do you know what kind of training I had to go through to get into the shadow Triad?"

I didn't say anything.

"I learned how to sort stupid teenage lies from the truth. You over explained yourself. That means you're lying."

The tears started to flow again. _Why? I thought I was strong!_

 _ **You're much stronger than this, May. Here, I'll let you channel my power as well.**_

I looked away from the shadow's face, trying to find out where the sound came from.

"Pay attention, May…" he whispered.

Suddenly, my bones felt like they were on fire. I screamed out and pulled at the cuffs holding me down. The pain went up to my eyes and a burst of golden light left my pupils. It hit the shadow in the face and knocked him backwards to the opposite side of the van.

I heard a godly shout in the back of my mind. Arceus? Was Arceus responsible for all this?

My short hunch ended quickly as the man stood up and looked at me in wonder.

"What is this?" he said, and walked back up to me. "Listen here, I don't have the faintest idea of what kind of trick you just pulled, but I'm going to step on the human ball if you don't tell me."

He set the ball on the floor and lifted his foot.

"NO!" I screamed. Leaf started to cry.

"Let's count down, shall we? Three, two, one." And he brought the foot down.

* * *

Clem looked at his phone, then stood up and walked to the cockpit.

"How close are we?" he asked the lead pilot. For a moment, he didn't respond, stuck in his little world.

"Hello?"

The pilot jerked out of his daze. "Yes?"

"Where are we right now?"

"Five minutes from the Kalos airport. Remember to pay us the fine if you survive."

Clem sighed. "You'll be getting the money either way. Besides, I already know who my successor will be if I were to die. And of course it won't be Brendan," he laughed when he saw the worried look on the man's face.

A phone started to beep in the back of the plane.

"If you'll excuse me…"

Clem picked up the phone. "Yes, Sam, what is it?"

"Right."

"Yes, I know my odds are slim if I go directly to the factory, but that's only if Arvil is even there yet."

"So, does this mean we have to change our plans?"

"Alright. I'll call Leaf."

* * *

Leaf and I watched in horror as I heard his foot smash into the floor of the van.

"WHAT?!" the shadow shouted as two dark paws wrapped around his face and started scratching him with sharp claws.

"AAHHH!"

The umbreon jumped off the man's face and started levitating him in the air, which was something that I didn't know he could do.

"Eclipse, can you get us out?" Leaf asked.

He walked up to her and swiped at the metal chains.

"Let me down!" the shadow shouted.

"Why would you even ask?" I scoffed.

The umbreon wasn't making any progress on the chains.

"Don't help us. Find Brendan!" I shouted.

So he looked around until he found the poke ball. Luckily, it wasn't broken from the shoe's impact. He reappeared in a bright flash.

Relief filled my entire body. I knew I couldn't lose him after all we've been through. Even though it was kind of his fault for losing every single one of my pokemon, who were also life—long friends.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Same place," I said with a smile.

"So...now what?"

"We escape," Leaf said.

"But we don't have any pokemon on us," Brendan said.

"So Eric isn't a pokemon?"

"Wha-?"

"I know it's weird. You don't have to tell me," Eric said.

"And now he can transform back," Leaf sighed.

"So. What's the plan to get out?"

* * *

 **Rushed, I know. But remember, the hiatus was supposed to be longer than this. I don't think some people would even call it that. As for this chapter, It's pretty fast-paced, but I need to conclude the story before school starts again in a month. Then I can solve the little problems like chapter length. The kinds of fixes you would see would be similar to the recent fix I made to Chapter One. More details, a celebration for Brendan's victory over Steven, and more words. After everything is done in this story, I'll resubmit it into with a better name for the book. Then you'll find me on . I have several story ideas I want to try out.**

 **Remember that this is the beta version of the story and it will get some more attention once the Prologue is once again showcased at the start of a seemingly-new story. Thank you, beta readers.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	40. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

"It's a shame that we still can't capture them yet, since I couldn't locate Brendan's poke balls."

I opened my eyes. My mind went on red-alert when I saw the ginormous cage holding me captive.

"Oh, looks like the staraptor's awake," someone said dully. I gingerly got up and began ramming my head into the bars.

The same person stood up from a table in the back of the massive van and pointed a gun at me.

"Shut up, or I'll put you right back to sleep."

I glared at him, and then shot invisible arrows to his three friends in the back.

"Yeah, take her out," someone in back said.

And everything went dark.

Later, I saw sunlight.

 _Oh, blessed sun!_

 _When again can I run?_

 _Always battle and have great fun?_

 _Jump into another cake?_

 _Maybe hop in a great big lake?_

 _Save Hoenn again for Master's sake?_

 _ **Please, I already have a headache,**_ Arceus said.

"Okay," I moaned. The time for poetry was over. I looked across the cage at my friends, who were also awake. I looked down, and saw a ton of poke balls that I recognized as Leaf and May's. Jaqueline's poke ball was also there, but I didn't want to hear her annoying voice at the moment, so I left it as is. There were a few poke balls that weren't marked for some reason, so I had no idea to whom they belonged.

Also, there was an areodactyl sitting there. I nodded to him, and he nodded back. It was the solemn nod of two comrades locked in a cage together in deep trouble. This was exactly fitting, since we're two comrades locked together in a cage. Lenny, Latias, and Zapdos were also present. The only people left to save us were the Cloud Cover.

"Where are we going?" Lenny said fearfully.

I shook my head. "Who knows? Maybe they'll let us eat cake."

Three men approached the cage. We shut our mouths and watched them as they rolled us out of the van and into a forest clearing.

 _Looks like the same forest that we were in earlier._

 _ **Correct, Harpy. Arvil's here to see you. He has only one last offer for Brendan, and if he refuses it, it's game over for y'all.**_

 _What is it?_ I asked.

 _ **It would be better to conserve my energy for telling Brendan instead. Great. I wasted energy just telling you that. And now I wasted energy saying that I wasted energy. AAAHHH!**_

I shook my head as the cage moved directly into the center of the grassy clearing.

 _He's even crazier than me, I think._

 _ **Nobody is crazier than you. And while I'm still here talking to you, I should let you know what Arvil is thinking right now… He'll be with you in three minutes. The van holding the humans is going to arrive at the same time. And this is when he'll show Brendan that he already created a new database for the PC system.**_

 _And that's why he blew the poke ball factory up earlier. He didn't need their database._

 _ **Right. I think the Cloud Cover handled this situation very poorly. Someone ought to replace Mr. Clem.**_

 _Maybe I could!_

 _ **Ha-ha. No.**_

"Should we bust out?" the areodactyl whispered in my ear. I shook my head.

"Let's wait for Brendan."

So we sat there, and, to pass the time, we removed each other's tranquilizer darts.

"So, what's your name?" I asked.

"I don't have a name," the areodactyl said.

"Like Zapdos and Latias," I said.

"Umm, I _do_ have a name!" Zapdos said.

"You don't get it," Latias said. "There is only one of me in the entire world, so my species name is the same as my actual name."

"But there's more than one areodactyl," I said.

"No one named me I guess," he said.

"That's horrible."

I looked at Lenny, then back at everyone else. "He's always oversensitive. Don't mind him."

"Yeah, it is horrible," Zapdos agreed. _Time to change tactics._

"Maybe I could name you!" I offered. He laughed. "No, I don't think pokemon can give each other names."

"Says who?"

"Umm… I don't know."

"Let's name you Areo."

Zapdos looked at me like I was crazy.

 _ **What do you mean by "like?"**_

 _Shut it, Arceus._

 _ **Are you sure? You may want to know that Arvil has finally arrived.**_

* * *

"Brendan, I can't get out," May said.

"Same here," Leaf said.

"You have any ideas?" I said.

"I got nothing," Eric said.

"You couldn't like, psychic them out or something?"

"Nope."

"So, now what?" I asked.

Eric sat down and put his head in his hands.

"Thinking hurts, I know," Leaf said.

"And I don't think I'll have much time," Eric said.

"Why is that?" Leaf asked.

"Because I can hear conversation in the front. We're almost to our destination."

"And where is that?"

"I don't know. But we're still in the forest, and if we're stopping soon then I don't think we're going to the closest city."

I felt the van slow down.

"Eric, we're out of time. We need to lock ourselves back up!"

So we did—just as the door to the van unlocked and opened. Five men ran in to find their fellow partner in crime on the floor, unconscious.

"What happened to him?" the lead one shouted at us. His purple sash made him even more intimidating for some weird reason. I envisioned telling him that I didn't know. Yeah…that wasn't going to work. But telling him the truth would be too unbelievable as well.

"We, uh, managed to trip him."

"Yeah," May said. "He came too close to me and got what he deserved."

They nodded. "He can be like that sometimes," the lead man said. "Well, we can take him to a hospital later. We need to get you kids outside to hear Arvil's proposition."

 _Oh no. What does he want with me this time?_

The guards pulled out something jammed it one at a time into each handcuff.

"Follow us closely, and we won't touch any of you," purple said. We nodded and did what he said—all the way to the edge of a clearing. May grabbed my hand and held it tight. I felt ashamed for forgetting that we were even together now, and resolved to remember her a lot more. I squeezed back.

"We're going to live through this."

She nodded, then poked my shoulder. "Look, there's our pokemon!" she whispered.

I looked forwards, and wasn't at all surprised to see them locked in cages. Then I looked past the cage and saw the source of all my pain and suffering. Even Archie couldn't top the irritation and anger. Ghetsis—on the other hand—wasn't comparable.

Presently he stood on a makeshift stage with twelve people behind him, all donning the fashionable purple sash.

"Step forwards," he said. We timidly walked past the cage and came within five feet of the stage. If only I had a gun, or a truncheon, or maybe my fist…

"I'll tell you why you're here. And it's not about the PC server getting blown to smithereens. I had already hacked into the system and have created my own. It's about the fact that the Hoenn region can't have you as the champion any more.

"You haven't blabbed to the world yet about the illegal things that the Foundation of the Rogue Region's been doing. You probably didn't want to get ridiculed of calling us out not long after becoming the champion, am I right?"

I lowered my head. "Yes."

I had just lied. I never really got the chance to tell anyone about the Foundation of the Rogue Region. If Arvil named the foundation himself, what was going through his head when he thought of the name? I knew that Arvil knew that what he's doing was wrong, but he just didn't care whether his actions were moral or not. I wondered what could've happened to him in his childhood that made him this way. I looked back up at him.

"But I can't let you go again. You'd go back to your Mr. Clem. At the moment, you're his best card in this game. And today is execution day."

I stared at him. "But you can't, killing's illegal."

Eric kicked me in the heel.

"What are you going to do?"

Arvil stepped closer to us. "I'm not a sick person lusting for blood. A quick shot to the head will be quick enough, I think."

I sadly listened as the pokemon behind us began wailing. It was comforting and it broke my heart at the same time.

"You're a MONSTER!" I screamed at him. "WHY? I don't understand why you're doing this!"

While I was shouting, he whispered to some of the men behind him. The next thing I knew was getting tied to the edge of the cage and masks put over our faces. I had to save my breath or else I would suffocate.

Arvil walked right up to my face. I tried to drive him away with my eyes, but he fought back with his own cold stare.

"Listen, boy. I'll kill you last for your outbursts. And my friends reminded me that a gunshot would probably be heard from far away. Silly me! We're gonna have to do with a knife."

My eyes widened. I was going to die the classical death. And my parents still didn't know where I was.

 _Oh, Arceus!_ I screamed in my head. _Get the mask off!_

 _ **What are you going to do?**_

 _Don't be stupid, you can read my mind._

 _ **I can hear what you say in your mind, but not what you want.**_

 _Whatever! Loosen it!_

Amazingly, the white cloth fell right off my face.

"Go to hell," I spat.

He stared at me. "I'll make sure those are your last words."

And I was bound at the mouth again.

 _ **REALLY?!**_

 _Yes._

 _ **Looks like I can't help you no more.**_

 _I…Can't think too clearly right now. My life is flashing before my eyes…_

 _ **Well, I wanted to keep you in suspense, but I think you can relax now. You can stop flashing your life at me.**_

 _Huh?_

I focused on the gleaming steak knife hovering above Leaf's head.

"When I give the signal," Arvil said. A tear fell from my face.

"Stab."

As the knife began to fall, I saw a burst of purple and magenta light fly from Eric and hit the blade, blasting it for miles in the opposite direction. The sound of shock and surprise didn't sound like much through our masks. Eric, meanwhile, continued shooting blasts of telekinetic power in every direction.

"Shoot HIM!" Arvil screamed.

Bang!

Somehow, Eric still stood, blasting everyone and the gunman away. Zapdos screeched behind us and let loose a storm of crackling electricity in celebration. Clearly he forgot that we were still tied to the bars.

"Don't stop!" I shouted.

"Thanks for telling him!" May yelled.

Then I heard a sound. At first, it gave me a fearful feeling, but then I realized that I wasn't hearing a helicopter in the distance. Rather, an airplane. It came into view and somehow stopped its forward velocity. It dropped lower until I could see each individual window on the exterior. A door opened near the front, and a rope dropped.

The first thought that came to mind was that we couldn't grab on to the rope. Then I realized that whoever was on that plane definitely thought ahead. A hook came down and latched onto the cage. Unfortunately, the cage couldn't pull itself up (which would've been amazing), but the plane did fly away. Bright bursts of gunfire could still be seen from over four hundred feet up in the sky. Thankfully, Eric had us covered. I heard gunfire from above as well, and I looked up. Clearly this plane was made to look harmless until the response was necessary. We continued to rise until the engagement between the sky and ground were disconnected.

* * *

"Good to have you back, and all alive," Clem said.

"Thank you," Leaf said.

"Why didn't you respond to our call?"

All of us looked confused. "You never called," Leaf said.

"I did, but maybe you were in an area I couldn't reach. Where were you?"

"At what time?" May asked.

"Eleven fifty-five ish," Mr. Clem said.

"Then we were probably in the van," I said.

"A faraday cage," Leaf said, "and I should know. Zapdos taught me all about them. Not by talking, of course."

Suddenly, dread fell over my entire frame. Other than the table in the back of the plane, there was nothing but the floor to collapse on. "We failed. Arvil already hacked the PC. Who knows what he's going to do now?"

"Market the pokemon?" May said. "Make the dough?"

"You also remember the fact that he's created a new system of overpowering weak pokemon, right?" Leaf asked. "Not to mention that he could bend all the pokemon to his will, since the owner of the pokemon automatically gets their allegiance."

Harpy went wild in her cage. _As if she didn't know this._

Mr. Clem nodded. "And he plans to take advantage of all those things. I have my infiltrators."

"So…now what?" I asked.

"We go home," Leaf said, "and come up with a new strategy."

* * *

 **One more chapter. Just one more. Of course, there's going to be a book 2, but first, I need to fix Leaf and May's characters and make them more defined. When I re-read them, they seem so black and white.**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


	41. Chapter 40

Chapter 40

I watched Nathan call out his unfezant once we got out of the Castelia City pokemon center. I knew that somewhere on him was Salad the serperior, and I would've liked to have a real conversation with him this time around. I wondered how I was supposed to take Glade all the way to the Kalos region, because I alone couldn't do it.

"Patriot, right?" Nate asked me. I nodded.

"Since I can't get this absol inside a poke ball, we could get ourselves to the closest store and get a basket for him to ride in."

"And how is that going to make it much easier?" I asked.

"And don't worry. Unfezzywig here will help you carry him."

The unfezant nodded. Someone needed to teach this kid how to name pokemon.

"So if you'll follow me, I'll take you to Shopping Mall Nine."

I always wanted to go to the major store of every region. Of course, I've already been to the Hoenn one in Lilycove City, but that was as far as I've gone. I picked the absol up and followed Nathan's unfezant out of the city.

"Here we are," he said. I stared at the mall. It was a lot smaller than I imagined it to be. I guessed my expectations for the Unova region on size confused me. But seriously, Shopping Mall Nine was smaller than the department store in Lilycove. We walked in, and a blast of cool store air washed over us. I loved the smell almost as much as bookstores and nature. Glade sighed.

We walked up to the front reception counter. The lady sitting there looked up from her computer.

"Hello, and welcome to Shopping Hall Nine. How can I help you?"

Brendan looked down at us, then back at the lady. "Yeah, would you know where the pokemon accessories would be?"

"What do you need?"

"Some kind of basket—maybe one big enough to hold this absol?"

She looked at us, smiled. "I think I can get you what you need for free. This store has some stuff that's going out to the garbage in a few days, and you can take whatever you want. Don't go upstairs, and take the door on the far right."

We thanked her and went through the door. The room was empty—with the exception of an old man and a lot of cardboard and wooden boxes.

"Take whatever you want!" he waved.

"Thanks!" Nathan said. He looked down at Glade. "So, anything you're comfortable with?"

He patted around the room until he stopped us at a sturdy looking box with no nails sticking out at random places, like some of the other ones.

"Good choice," I said. "It's not going to weigh a million pounds either."

So we took the box and ran back outside. We didn't have time to stick around. If only Arceus could conveniently teleport us.

If only…

If only…what?

I don't know.

We ate at a nearby fast food restaurant to prepare ourselves for the trip. Even though we went as fast as we could, I was scared that we already missed out on the mission, which would be disastrous for Brendan. I hoped he would forgive me if I failed. Actually, he probably could make it without me.

 _ **Now, please don't be alarmed or anything, but we're not headed towards the factory.**_

 _What?!_

 ** _Don't worry, I have it all under control. But there's no possible way for you to make it to the factory in time. Instead, we're gonna hide out at Nate's house for several hours._**

 _Oh Arceus! Please be right about this!_

"I knew you'd come early," Nate said to me. "So I think you'll enjoy seeing my house and my pokemon!"

* * *

The grunts and admins were nothing short of horrified when they saw the very disappointed (maybe even murderous) look on Arvil's face as the plane flew away with Brendan, his friends, and the pokemon.

"We can't stay here for another minute!" he barked. "Clear up and let's move out."

But only a quarter of the men and women obeyed right away. Everyone else were too busy watching something unfolding on the other end of the clearing. Arvil strode over, accompanied by his twelve admins. A man was curled up in the grass, twitching as if he was having a seizure. Arvil stood right next to his face and pointed.

"This," he said, "is what happens when you disobey direct and specific orders from either me or my admins. I told you to stay in the clearing. How unfortunate. Luckily for you, I'm merciful and will give you a second chance to perform appropriately. Maybe even a third if you didn't mean to goof. Bella!"

One of the admins snapped to attention.

"Turn the taser field off - only for this man."

"Yessir!" she said quickly, and pulled out a tablet. After a few taps on the screen, the man's unnatural seizure ended. Now all of the grunts behind and around Arvil were exchanging worried and shocked glances.

"This wasn't in the contract!" one said angrily to another, but not loud enough for Arvil or his admins to hear.

"Well, as long as we follow protocol, we'll be perfectly fine...," another said.

As the vehicles drove off, none of the people following Arvil had mutinous thoughts on their minds. But over half of them had a little reserve mixed with doubt and plans to get out of the FRR's service when the opportunity arose.

* * *

The plane didn't go back to Hoenn. It landed at an airport near Castelia City.

"It's because the enemy would think that we'd go back to Hoenn. We need to lay low for a while," Mr. Clem had said.

And so we found ourselves in what had to be the world's smallest hotel room, in the Unova region of all places. But it wasn't all bad. Luckily, every single one of our pokemon had been released into the cage, so we had recovered every single one of them. I'm sure it made May angry at me again; we still haven't recovered her original pokemon. Now she had to rely on those new members she found at the training center. Mr. Clem couldn't stay with us, however. He told us that he'd send someone over to pick us up once the coast looked clear for us to come out.

It had been almost twelve hours before we heard a knock at the door. Leaf opened it, and gasped. I jumped up from the small couch where I was watching T.V. with Jaqueline and Eric. They followed me close behind to see what the commotion was all about. Alec stood in the door, with a smile crossing over his face.

"It's been a while, yeah?"

"Yes, it has," I said, smiling. "Where have you been?"

"I managed over time to… Well, not convince Arvil that I was on his good side, but I did loosen his hold on me. There was an evacuation in the Mauville underground - like almost half left - and I had Sammy the infiltrator let me out. It was perfect, because not many guards were on duty, and Sammy got me out of there quick.

"It's strange though. Arvil had the luxury to kill me, or even try to weedle information I've had many guesses as to why, but I came up with nothing. But down to business - I have juicy news for you all."

"What's that?" we asked in unison.

"Have you heard about the Lunala project?"

I shook my head, although I did remember hearing about Lunala being transported with Arvil down to the poke ball factory.

"I didn't think you would know. Here's the gist of it: Arvil does have weapons of mass murder at his disposal, but he's afraid to use them."

"Why would he use them, though? What would he profit from that?" Leaf asked.

Alec leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. We followed suit.

"Because then the people would look for someone to blame for the bombings. Alec has a plan for mass destruction—and it is going to involve Ultra Beasts."

"Ultra Beasts…" I repeated. "They sound nice."

"Right?" Alec said with a forced laugh. "So. These monsters are untamed, vicious creatures that have been known in history for craving blood. The public will remember these legends and immediately place the blame. This will allow Arvil to swiftly take over the Hoenn region and create a new empire."

It seems so farfetched that I have to live in this day and age, I thought.

What are Ultra Beasts? I mean, I haven't ever seen one before.

"But I don't understand," I said. "Arvil's going to rule over a dead region? How does this make any sense?"

"Oh, Arvil plans to capture the beasts first," Alec said. "Another informant told me that he's going to minimize the damage on the region just enough to cripple it. The Pokemon League would fall, and the hidden government that takes care of the region and police force would have to reveal its true identity to fight back. It's gonna be ugly."

"It's not all bad," May said. "It would be nice to know who's been governing this region."

"It would, but it would be better if no one knew. That's why Hoenn is the most prosperous region, I think. No one would dare rise up against something they couldn't see," Leaf said.

"Very astute," Alec agreed.

There was a long pause as we all thought about upcoming events.

"Mr. Clem is going to need our help again," May said tiredly.

"Yes. And hopefully this time, we'll have a more solid plan. We already lost the P.C. system. We can't lose any more freedom," Alec answered.

"We'll be waiting here for Mr. Clem," I said.

"Oh yeah," Alec said. "That's also why I'm here. The coast is clear to return you all to Headquarters. Follow me out of the city."

It was late at night when we left, drowning in the impending tasks before us. We couldn't see exactly what they were going to be, but the prospects of them were crystal clear. I wanted to give Harpy a break, and Patriot was still missing, so I took Latias. As the legendary pokemon picked up speed, May wrapped her arms around my waist.

I looked back at her and smiled. Finally I had a moment to enjoy the fresh wind that blew in my face - without fear of getting killed. On top of that, I finally had a romantic situation in my life, which was something I was unaccustomed to. I nodded towards Eric and his areodactyl. On the right side was Harpy - not carrying anyone and enjoying the night air.

The flight out of the Unova region took a little more than twenty minutes. Then we began passing over the Kalos region - which was adjacent to Unova and close to Hoenn.

A few minutes later, I was able to look below at the dazzling lights coming from the Lumiose city gym. My friends and I had spent the most part of the day cramped in the hotel, but it was definitely worth leaving at night.

I looked ahead, and for a moment, my heart stopped.

"What is that thing?!" Leaf yelled over the wind. I squinted at the contraption in front of us, and it appeared to be going at a somewhat slow speed. It kind of looked like a hot-air balloon, with some kind of basket thing suspended on ropes. I couldn't help but feel alarmed at the strange thing in front of me.

"Slow down!" Alec shouted. He halted his enormous noctowl and the rest of us did the same. We watched as the contraption drew closer - until I could see what was sitting in the basket.

"IT'S GLADE!" I shouted, and Harpy spazzed out as well. I heard the familiar cry of Patriot ahead. Then we saw the person sitting on the unfezant.

"Nathan?" I said in disbelief.

He nodded in the light of the tower. "Yep, that's me. The champion of the Unova region. I came to help you fight Arvil."

I found it strange that he already knew the basics of our problem.

"That's great," Leaf said. "We need all the help we can get."

"I know," Nathan said. "Arceus came to me in a dream, with news that a swellow and umbreon would appear in Castelia the next day."

"So that's why you left!" I said happily. Everything was coming together. It wasn't like I never trusted in Patriot, but now I had an explanation for his and Glade's absence. The swellow couldn't return to his poke ball yet, due to the fact that he was sharing Glade's weight with Nate's unfezant. He bobbed his head apoligetically in my direction then said something to the unfezant.

"Patriot needs to get to the ground," Eric said loudly over the sound of the cars traveling in the city below.

"By all means," Alec said.

We all decended onto one of the routes that branched off of Lumiose. The only light came from the moon and several embers that moved about in the grass. Patriot and the unfezant collapsed, and Glade jumped out of his basket. If only Nathan had one of Kurt's special poke balls that ignored the "already caught so no catch" rule. Then Patriot didn't have to almost die lugging him all the way into Kalos.

"Is he alright?" May asked.

I knelt down and picked up the staggering bird pokemon.

"You need some potions," I said.

Harpy stood next to the absol, who looked exhausted even though he hardly did a thing the whole day - other than sitting in a flying basket, of course.

Eric walked up and put one arm on each the absol and the staraptor. "Long time, no see!" he said brightly.

I was surprised by his attitude after the horrifying events of the day. Maybe he was trying to turn a new leaf...for his Leaf. Whatever it was was welcomed, in my opinion. Maybe Harpy would've enjoyed having the quiet reserved umbreon back.

Once I had sprayed both the swellow and unfezant, I returned him to my poke ball.

"Thanks for taking care of Unfezzywig," Nate said, and I tried to stifle a snort at the sound of the bird's name.

"Yeah, no problem," I said. I turned to Alec. "We've rested up. Where to now?"

I didn't hear anything, and I couldn't see him either. "Alec?"

Harpy screeched, and Eric translated: "ALEC WHERE ARE YOU YA FAT LUG?!"

"Has anyone seen him?" May said.

"I just saw him a second ago," Leaf said irritably. "He couldn've gone far."

"Everyone separate!" Harpy said.

If Alec had been there, he would've said "no" right off the bat. Any of us could've gotten lost. Fortunately, I found him before Harpy could get more than twenty feet off the ground. By tripping over his face.

"I found him!" I shouted. We all gathered around him.

"I think he's sleeping!" Leaf said. And she was completely right - he was knocked out from pure exhaustion.

"He had a long day, but we have to get out of here," Leaf said sternly.

I shook him until he opened his eyes and sat bolt-upright. "Was I sleeping?" he said in a tight voice.

"Yes," I said.

He groaned. "I hope I don't have to be awake for more than forty-eight hours again. We need to get to the headquarters on time, because Mr. Clem's expecting us at one A.M."

I checked my watch. We only had forty minutes left. "Let's go."

And so I got on Harpy with May behind me. I had let Latias go ahead the moment she touched the ground, so she was probably more than halfway to Southern Island, where she lived.

"Is everyone ready?" Alec said, seated on his noctowl.

"Yes," Eric said.

"Yes," Leaf said on Zapdos.

I said yes, and we took off in an arrow formation.

 _ **I trust you know what pain you're in for, right?**_

 _I have an idea what pain I'll feel in the near future. It scares me, but I can't let it take control over my conviction to beat Arvil and the FRR._

 ** _Oh, I already knew you were in for it. Peer pressure and all. I was just wondering if you were the fearless type. Apperently not!_**

 _You think you're so funny, Arceus._

 _ **I'm basically god here, so I'm funny when I SAY I am.**_

 _Sorry, I won't anger you again._

 ** _Do you want me to hold you to that?_**

 _No..._

 ** _Good for you. Because you'd probably drop right off Harpy's back and fall into the ocean then next time you say something offensive to me._**

"I hope we'll all have a nice rest when we get there," May sighed into my ear.

"Maybe take a dip in the pool...put the toxapex back where I found it," I said back.

We were silent for a while, looking at the stars and enjoying the cold whipping of the winds. We didn't even have a problem with Harpy muttering nonsense into everyone's ears. In fact, it was comforting to see something as normal as her sneaking up behind the dazed-looking Alec and screaming "WAKE UP!" (acknoledgement of Eric's very accurate translations).

Twenty minutes later, Hoenn came into view. We passed somewhat close to Southern Island, where we noticed the bright-red flash - a special greeting in the dark.

 _ **She's thinking about letting you capture her.**_

 _I guess she thought I might be pure of heart. That's a start, I guess._

We passed over Mount Chimney and stopped at the waterfall on the other side. I knew that this was home away from home, and that was okay. After all, I had my friends with me.

* * *

 **The end! MAJOR EDITING TIME has begun! In about a year you'll find a new and improved Prologue to this story waiting for you! The Prologue for the sequel should be out in a few weeks!**

 **-PatrioticSwellow**


End file.
